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siqqet · 4 years ago

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So here’s the... thing... The writing.... With Soph and Thassie....

“Um, sir?” Ensign Soraimo questioned, staring ahead, a bemused expression on his face. He had been called into the Commander’s office to address the recent disaster he had caused, and had been expecting the worst. The Commander, an ex-Sith, was known for dishing out harsh punishments, though Soraimo had heard whispers from older Imperials who had served under her while she still sat on the Dark Council that she had toned it down since the arrival of Republic citizens in order to maintain their support. They asserted that back in the day she had been entirely without mercy, torturing and killing soldiers for the slightest of misdeeds, so when Soraimo had entered the chamber, trembling in anticipatory terror, soot from the explosion still staining his shoulders, he thought he would be met with anger, and probably Force-lightning. Instead, the Commander sat at her desk, a serene, if not slightly entertained expression crossing her pale face and a young child balancing on her knee.

Soraimo recognized the child as Thassande, the adopted daughter of the Commander and her lovers, Beniko and Shan, though most people assumed a relation between her and the child, as they were of the same species and shared many traits. What Soraimo didn’t understand was what she was doing here. Surely a disciplinary meeting was no place for a kid, especially as Soraimo knew his punishment would have to be severe.

If the Commander agreed with him, though, she didn’t show it, keeping a steady eye locked on him, ignoring the child squirming on her lap, unable to keep still for even a second, and Soraimo was hardly in a place to challenge her lack of professionalism. When the Commander spoke, Soraimo startled, having been too lost in the confounding details of the situation that he had momentarily forgotten why he was there.

“Am I to understand that it is you, Ensign Firne Soraimo, who lost us thousands of credits worth of experimental technology?” Despite her calm expression, her voice was cold, scathing. Soraimo winced. His eyes lowered as he stared at the floor in shame and fear, his fingers nervously playing with the hem of his uniform.

“Yes, sir.” he mumbled.

The Commander made a small noise that Soraimo tagged as disapproval, and out of the edge of his vision, he saw her shift in her chair, the leather of her skirt creaking as it moved against the leather of her chair. When he looked up, she was leaning forward now, body curled so that her elbows could rest on the desk while still providing room for Thassande, who giggled quietly to herself, to poke through. The Commander’s expression held more gravity.

“It is difficult to find parts for a stealth ship, you understand,” she said and Soraimo couldn’t meet her eyes. He had always thought Sith had creepy eyes, but the anger behind them had never been directed at him. He didn’t want to see if it was now.

The Commander continued. “I shouldn’t have to tell you how costly the war with Zakuul was, or how hard it is to find usable parts for such sophisticated technology. You fought beside me. You should be well aware of the scarcity.”

Soraimo nodded. He remembered well, but it wasn’t as if he had destroyed the fighter on purpose. He felt suddenly defensive.

“It was hardly my fault, sir. If we could just standardize the measuring systems, I wouldn’t have run out of fuel!” he blurted out.

“Silence!” The Commander snapped in return, glaring at him over her daughter’s head. He noticed the wrinkle of anger in her furrowed brow aligned perfectly with the white markings on her face. “You dare tell me what to do, Ensign? After the catastrophe you have caused?” She did not yell at him; her voice remained at regular speaking volume, and rather level, but beneath it there was an edge, a venom that told Soraimo that he had overstepped. Of course he had. He had no right telling the Commander how to run her alliance. Besides, his suggestion hadn’t even been useful. Officially, the units of measurement were standardized, despite the shortcuts some Imperial soldiers took. They followed Republic units, which Soraimo could never follow, hence his disastrous mistake. He had no place exclaiming like that.

A giggle sounded, contrasting the Commander’s frosty tone and Soraimo’s silent guilt. Thassande grinned at him, her eyes glinting with a mischief Soraimo expected from the daughter of two Sith and a SIS agent, though that wasn’t the only unsettling thing about her expression, he realized. Although the smile on her tiny face should have been cute, a chill went down Soraimo’s spine when he saw that every one of her teeth were pointed. She laughed again, a knowing smirk replacing the dangerous-looking smile.

“Careful, mister. Isla’s mad at you.” she said. Her tone was so sincere that Soraimo would have believed it to be a genuine warning had he not seen her expression. He also took note of what the young girl called her mother, pondering it for a second before realizing that since she had two mothers, it was logical to call the Commander by what Soraimo assumed was either her given name or a nickname. As he considered this, Thassande shifted, trying to straighten up, but only succeeding in driving her miniature montrals into her mother’s chin, causing the Commander to hiss in pain and surprise. In reaction, the Commander leaned back again, giving Thassande more room to move around, though she put her hands on the child’s hips to keep her from wiggling so much. Soraimo thought he heard her murmur “Mind yourself, love,” but thought it best to stay still and silent until the Commander had shifted her focus back to him. She stared at him for a long time before speaking again.

“Ensign Soraimo, your carelessness has caused us quite a setback. We will have to find new parts and--”

“You couldn’t scavenge anything?” he cut in, then winced at his mistake. He had spoken on impulse alone, his nervousness making him hasty.

The look the Commander gave him made him want to sink into the floor and the silence before she spoke was longer than the last.

“It was... Completely... Destroyed.” She said slowly, clearly, enunciating the words. Soraimo felt awful. He hadn’t meant to cause that much carnage. Well, he hadn’t meant to cause any, but this was a level of destruction he hadn’t thought he could have been capable of. It was disheartening, and terrifying.

Thassande decided to take the pause during which Soraimo’s soul was withering away in disgrace to pipe in. “It- It was a huge Ka-Boom!” she announced, excitement filling her voice. “I saw it- I saw it from my room! There was so much fire!” Thassande said, spreading her arms wide to demonstrate her understanding of the scale to the best of her ability.

Soraimo found her enthusiasm a bit offputting, but he supposed a four year old didn’t really have the emotional intelligence to understand the gravity of the situation. If he hadn’t had his life on the line, he might have thought it was cute.

“There was so much fire.” The Commander added, the faintest hint of amusement in her voice.

“You are fortunate no one was hurt, or else deciding what to do with you would be a lot easier for me, but a lot less pleasant for you, I suspect.” she said and Soraimo groaned internally. He wouldn’t exactly call the situation he was in ‘lucky’.

“My punishment, then, sir?” He asked, trying to keep his voice as professional and to-the-point as possible, though there was a slight tremor to it. The smirk on the Commander’s face seemed to drink up his fear, but this time he did not look away, even as his legs shook beneath him. The beat between his question and her reply seemed to stretch an eternity.

“Hmm...” The Commander stared past him, drawing the intermission out even further. Soraimo thought he might vomit from the anxiety.

She looked down, eyes fixed on the small child sat across her thighs who in turn looked up to meet her mother’s glance. “Advisor Thassande, what punishment do you recommend for Ensign Soraimo?”

The Commander’s voice was completely serious as she posed the question. Thassande’s eyes lit up and she gave a happy wiggle, seeming to like being asked her opinion. Once again, Soraimo wasn’t entirely sure how to react.

Thassande deliberated for a moment, humming and hawing over her decision, leaving Soraimo in limbo, unsure if he should be scared or not. Occasionally she’d stretch up to whisper something against her mother’s montrals, at which point the Commander would nod briskly and Thassande would go back to thinking. Finally, finally, she broke the silence, though with a laugh that sounded impressively evil for such an adorable child. Soraimo registered with a start that this was a Sith child, and that there was a very real possibility that her verdict may have been just as nasty as the Commander’s.

“Um, you’re... Um, you’ve gotta go to time out for the... the, um rest of the day and you’re not allowed to play-- to play with your toys... Your ships.” Thassande stammered out her best impression of a grown-up, though her high-pitched voice and speech impediment along with the characteristic hesitation of a child made the delivery kind of endearing. The punishment itself was monumentally less cruel than Soraimo would have predicted, given the situation, and he almost didn’t want to glance at the Commander for her confirmation.

When their eyes met, a soft smile crossed the Commander’s face, amused and loving, though it hardened after a second when she started to speak. “You heard her, Ensign. You are to remain in your bunk until dinner and you are to be reassigned from duty in the hangar. Check in with your Captain tomorrow, I will give her the details of your new assignment. You are dismissed.” She instructed and Soraimo nearly collapsed in relief. Not only was that a lenient punishment from the Commander, it was a lenient punishment in general. Thank the stars for Thassande’s input.

“Yes, sir!” He saluted the Commander as he stumbled towards the door, his body feeling like jelly now that the panic was wearing off. After a split second of consideration, he also offered a salute to Thassande, who giggled and waved at him. Unexpectedly, the Commander also laughed, though hers was a deep rumble.

“You’re lucky your mess caused too much of a stir-up for me to find a babysitter.” Her eyes bored into him as he wobbled out the door. “Any further mistakes will bear a much less... merciful result.”

#qet writes.txt #thats a tag now ig???#btw this is my first time‚ um‚ posting my writing to tumblr so like #sorry if format isnt #also like im just not a writer like i only write when idk how to do i as art so lmao #oc: soph #oc: thassande #writing

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firestorm717 · 6 years ago

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An Introduction to Callan

Allow me to introduce you to a new fandom of mine - Callan, a British TV series from 1967-72 starring Edward Woodward (The Equalizer, The Wicker Man) in the title role. Callan is a Cold War spy drama in the tradition of Len Deighton's The Ipcress File and John le Carré's The Spy Who Came in From the Cold. Its world is dark and bleak, its characters morally ambiguous, and its stories often end on a downbeat turn. (The first episode of the series is called "The Good Ones Are All Dead"). James Bond this is not; in fact, Callan was conceived as the antithesis to Bond-style escapism. It depicts the seedy side of espionage with its criminal associates and cynical bureaucracy, beneath which agents toil like pawns on a chessboard, as likely to be killed by friend as foe.

So why do I recommend this series? Well, if you're like me, you're partial to darkness and angst ;) But even if that's not your usual cup of tea, I suggest you check out Callan on the strength of its acting alone. Woodward does a masterful job of portraying the morally conflicted assassin, David Callan, both frightening in his anger and heartbreakingly vulnerable in his grief. He is joined by Anthony Valentine (Colditz, Raffles) with whom he shares crackling on-screen chemistry, and Russell Hunter (The Gaffer), a skilled character actor who practically inhabits his role. This top-notch talent is supported by a top-notch script. The plots are complex and clever, featuring lies, subterfuge, and misdirection - all the classic spy storylines - that demand close attention from the audience. Sharp dialogue takes the place of action in most parts, shining the spotlight on character interaction. Many scenes read as if they'd come from a superb stage play.

Finally, for the slash fans, there's a ton of wonderful subtext surrounding the two handsome leads, Callan and Meres, as well as several canonically gay/bisexual side characters.

In conclusion, you'll enjoy Callan if

You relish historically-based spy dramas with complex plots.

You like morally ambiguous and conflicted main characters.

You are a sucker for tragedy, angst, and every deathfic trope.

You appreciate good-looking men in three-piece suits.

On the other hand, this series may not be for you if

You prefer slick "James Bond" action, adventure, and romance.

You need a protagonist that you can always root for.

You want modern cinematography and video quality.

You are bothered by some degree of sexism and wish to see a diverse cast.

In the following sections, I provide a detailed description of the setting and characters. Interested readers may watch the entire show on my Youtube playlist, or just check out the recommended episodes below. (Due to the age of the series, some episodes from seasons 1-2 are missing from the BBC archives. I have posted all that are commercially available).

The Section

Eliminating people. Framing. Extortion. Death. All the jobs that are too dirty for Her Majesty's security forces to touch. The Section is a top secret branch of British intelligence that specializes in dirty jobs no other branch will touch - kidnapping, extortion, blackmail, and quite often execution of persons deemed a threat to the government. Its targets are usually spies or assets belonging to the Eastern bloc, although it is not above eliminating innocent citizens should they threaten its goals as well. Its secrecy is paramount. All agents, including the Section head, are known only by code name, and the department itself is housed in a drab building under cover of a scrap metal business owned by "Charlie Hunter". The offices are cramped, the furniture spartan; except for a shooting range in the basement, there is no hint as to its true purpose... which is just as well, for any unauthorized person who learns of its purpose is likely to wind up in a red file - most urgently marked for death by the Section's assassins.

Hunter

You're always asking for reasons. That's what makes you weak. Schneider's in a red file, that's reason enough. The code name for the current head of Section is Hunter. Hunter delegates the missions and directs the movements of agents in the field. He himself rarely steps foot outside the office, instead delivering orders from behind his imposing oak desk - orders which he expects to be obeyed unquestioned. His main method of communication (aside from in-person meetings) is the red telephone on his desk. Typically, an agent phones in with a report to "Charlie", and Hunter answers with an assessment of the situation followed by a new order. He is ultimately responsible for the success or failure of a mission. As Section head, Hunter also has political obligations. He must meet with senior government officials such as the Foreign Secretary, navigate diplomatic waters for defectors and allies, and forestall interdepartmental rivalry with agencies like Special Branch. Thus, the qualifications for Hunter are far more administrative than they are physical, which is reflected by the aging staff officers who typically fill the role. The first Hunter we meet is Colonel Leslie, known colloquially as the Colonel among his agents. (In keeping with military protocol, subordinates are expected to address the Section head to his face as "Hunter" or "sir"). It is the Colonel who introduces a color-coded filing system for the Section's extensive list of targets. David Callan, a top field operative, describes the system thusly in the pilot - "If a bloke joined the wrong party, he got a blue file. If he was under surveillance, he got a yellow one. And if he was dangerous, I mean really dangerous, he got a red one. He usually got killed as well." Later, a white file is added for individuals whom the Section wants to put in prison, divorce courts, bankruptcy, or mental homes, a slightly less permanent destination than death. As the series progresses, various men don the mantle of Hunter, some more rigid, others marginally more forgiving. But that filing system always remains the same.

David Callan

You sacked me, remember? You said I was too soft. Well, I'm still soft, Hunter. I still worry about the people I've killed. David Callan is only good at two things - killing people and collecting model soldiers. The son of a working-class family, his parents were killed by a V2 rocket when he was only 13, and he left school shortly thereafter to apprentice at a locksmiths firm. Eventually, he found his way into the army and impressed his superiors with his shooting, unarmed combat, and survival skills, earning him a promotion to corporal. That promotion was short-lived, however, as his insolence toward an officer saw him reduced back to private. This would be a recurring theme in Callan's career. After serving as a commando in Malaya, he returned to work at the locksmiths firm. He soon became involved in the attempted theft of a jeweler's safe, but was caught and sentenced to 2 years in Wormwood Scrubs. It was upon Callan's early release that the Section recruited him. He trained under Colonel Leslie and carried out numerous missions, including assassinations, with great success. The Colonel rated him very highly, and he in turn held the Colonel in considerable regard. By the age of 29, Callan had risen to second-in-command and was on the shortlist of candidates for next head of Section. Then, everything changed. In the spring of 1965, the Colonel ordered Callan to kill a KGB agent named Zhverkov, whom Callan knew and liked very much. After immense pressure, he finally carried out the killing, but from then on became overly involved with his targets, insisting on making his own value judgments rather than following orders blindly. His relationship with the Colonel deteriorated until the Section deactivated him a year later. At the start of the series, Callan is a 36-year-old bookkeeper working a dead-end job, his suit shabby and wrinkled, his flat spartan and cheap, the only joy in his life his collection of model soldiers. No one would guess that he was once the Section's most prolific assassin. Callan's defining characteristic is his conscience - he needs to know why a job must be done before he will do it. Even then, he is liable to disobey orders he feels are unjust or endanger innocent people. His tendency to sympathize with his targets brings him in direct conflict with Hunter, as well as his fellow agents, who have no qualms about killing. This conflict is exacerbated by Callan's class consciousness; he carries a chip on his shoulder regarding authority, especially wielded by officers and the social elite... two circles that comprise most of his superiors. Indeed, season 1 sees Callan at odds with his allies more often than his enemies, saved from placement in a red file only by his usefulness to the Section. The thought that his usefulness may one day run out forms the underlying tension in the series. In the end, Callan is a man trapped by his own success - an assassin who kills because he is good at nothing else.

Lonely

I do have baths, Mr. Callan. The way I smell is psychosomatic. Lonely lives up to his name. A small-time burglar with terrible body odor, he first met Callan during the latter's stint in Wormwood Scrubs. His criminal skills proved useful, and Callan began to employ him on a case-by-case basis as a lookout, tail, thief/safecracker, driver, and weapons supplier for Section work, although Lonely himself knows nothing about the Section. In fact, Lonely has never pulled a trigger in his life. He frequently must be bullied or bribed into helping Callan on a job, and then only reluctantly for fear of being caught in the violence. Their relationship can most succinctly be described as codependent. Lonely needs Callan's cash and protection (though that protection is often from Callan's own colleagues), and Callan needs Lonely's eyes and ears, for the petty crook's very insignificance makes him an excellent spy. They are the closest each has to a friend. That friendship is tested again and again by Hunter. Since Lonely is not part of the Section, he represents a security risk to its operations, and more than one Hunter has threatened to eliminate Lonely for good. They usually back down, however, after seeing Callan's reaction. Because as much as Callan exploits and abuses Lonely, he is also fiercely protective of the little man, exacting vicious revenge on anyone (including fellow agents) who dare lay hands on the burglar. This is because Lonely is the only person Callan can trust - an outsider to the spy game, not bright enough or important enough to warrant attention, and very much dependent on him. His smell is the smell of Callan's own id, a dank pit of criminality driven more by fear than loyalty to any particular cause.

Toby Meres

It's frightfully bad taste to welcome you like this, I agree, but we do need a spot of information from you rather urgently - just filling in, you know, code names and so on. If Lonely is the id, then Meres is Callan's foil. Born the son of a Lord, Meres was educated at the prestigious Eton College before receiving a commission as an officer in the Coldstream Guards. His career ended abruptly when a private guardsman died in an "accident" that he arranged. Although the case never made it to court martial, Meres was forced to resign and eventually found employment as an agent in the Section. The work suited his real talents. At the beginning of the series, he is a youthful 27 and already Hunter's right-hand man. Only Callan stands between him and the top. On the surface, Meres is droll and charming, the portrait of a public schoolboy from the upper classes. But that is only a mask for his sadistic streak. He has none of Callan's reservations about killing and will carry out orders ruthlessly and efficiently, even delighting in the opportunity to interrogate prisoners. His attitude toward colleagues is typified by emotional indifference with a touch of condescension. At the death of one, Meres simply observes that it's "par for the course" in their line of work. He largely leaves trainees to sink or swim and is not especially bothered when they sink. The only person who stirs some feeling in him is Callan. From the beginning, Meres recognizes Callan's talent and extols it to allies and superiors. He claims to detest Callan - indeed, the two start off as antagonists - yet lobbies for the latter to rejoin the Section in "Red Knight, White Knight". After that point, their relationship slowly develops from a rivalry to a partnership based on mutual respect for each other's skills. Meres enjoys teasing Callan (sometimes to a dangerous degree, as he is prone to breaking into Callan's flat unannounced), and Callan grows to trust Meres despite their very different moral systems. It is telling that the most distraught Meres ever gets is during a scene with Callan in "Death of a Hunter". Perhaps this is because Meres, at heart, does have some semblance of a conscience. He subtly protests orders from Hunter that he deems ill-advised or unnecessarily harsh. It's simply that his bar for harshness sits a lot higher than Callan's, and when push comes to shove, Meres will usually cave to authority because authority is what he learned to obey in the Guard.

James Cross

You ever played Russian roulette? It's better than horses. You play for your life. Cross is a newcomer to the Section, promoted during a period when both Callan and Meres were unavailable. A young man in his 20's with flip hair and a taste for stylish clothes, he has the swagger of an agent with twice the experience, despite logging a mediocre record in the field. He fancies himself Callan's successor and is none too pleased when the latter returns to the Section. Brash and callous, Cross has little regard for the collateral damage from his actions, putting him at immediate odds with Callan. His recalcitrance leads to at least one disaster, which Callan is forced to clean up. As a result, the two share a mutual dislike for each other - Cross believes Callan is over the hill, Callan perceives Cross as an arrogant upstart - and initially only work together on Hunter's orders. In many ways, Cross resembles a young Meres. They both exude smug confidence, harbor a sadistic streak, and have their eye on Callan's position as top agent. However, while Meres's ambition is tempered by genuine respect, Cross bestows that respect grudgingly. He and Callan never develop the sort of camaraderie that Callan has with Meres.

Elizabeth (Liz) March

That girl's a walking memory bank. She's been in a red file since the day she took the job. Liz is Hunter's secretary and handles all the communications, transportation, and files on allies and enemies. She fulfills this duty from the first episode to the last, making her one of the most knowledgeable people in the Section, moreso than many agents like Cross. It's thus a pity that her role in the series is largely limited to answering phones. (I couldn't even find a decent quote by her). However, she does get an opportunity to shine in "A Village Called 'G'", which provides a glimpse into her backstory and motivations.

Dr. Snell

I put him on tranquilizers for a bit, and he quite liked that. And then some of the hallucinogens... Oh, and I managed to make him lose track of time too. Then, I put him on pentothal. He prattles like a child. At first glance, Snell doesn't seem to belong in the Section. He's a soft-spoken, bespectacled man of about 50 with silver hair and the dispassionate air of an Ivory Tower academic. We first meet him at his office on Harley Street, where he runs a private medical practice. Hunter asks him to conduct a benign memory test on a biologist suspected of East German sympathies. However, it soon becomes clear that Snell's role extends far beyond that of a simple outside adviser. He is arguably one of the most important people involved in the Section and, in effect, outranks the field agents themselves. For Snell is a psychiatrist, who employs his skills in two ways - interrogating enemy operatives and evaluating the medical fitness of the Section's own employees. In the first task, he is uniquely brutal because his instruments of torture are drugs (pentothal, LSD, and other psychotropics) that wreak havoc on his victim's mind. And Snell goes about this work with scientific indifference, only betraying a hint of pleasure when his injections give rise to an interesting effect. What's more, his victims usually don't remember what they've said to him... if they retain their sanity at all. Snell's interrogation techniques already cast him as a sinister figure, but what makes him disliked even among his allies is his second task - psychologically profiling the Section's own agents. You see, espionage is a highly stressful job. If an agent snaps, the consequences for national security could be dire. Thus, it is Snell's job to determine whether an agent is about to snap before he snaps and report it to higher authority. At best, a bad report from Snell means getting pulled from the field. At worst, it gets one's name placed in a red file. Either way, his word is usually final.

Mr. Bishop

All you need to know is that in the pecking order of the security game, we get first peck. "Big men have to snivel sometimes, Hunter," Snell says, and the man Hunter snivels to is Bishop. A senior official in the SIS, Bishop is Hunter's superior and oversees a wide variety of foreign intelligence operations. He has the authority to assign new missions, disburse funds for equipment, order prisoner exchanges, and hire and fire Section heads. However, while his powers are broad, Bishop never steps foot in the field - his role is purely strategic, and his concern lies with the sociopolitical impact of a job rather than the individuals involved. He is the picture of the calculating, condescending bureaucrat, giving orders from his cushy seat in the rear while his subordinates risk their lives. It thus comes as a surprise that Bishop acts as Callan's ally in the beginning. He sees potential in Callan beyond that of a mere trigger-puller and bolsters the latter's career within the Section. Naturally, Bishop's reasons are self-serving - Callan is just a particularly useful cog in the espionage machine, after all - but they manage to forge a fragile working relationship... until circumstances intervene.

Richmond

For people like you and me, safety can only be found among our enemies. It's our friends who will kill us. While Richmond appears in only a few episodes, his impact on Callan is profound enough to warrant a spot on this list. Richmond is a colonel in the KGB and one of their best, most experienced agents. Intelligent and erudite, he uses his substantial knowledge about Callan's background to try and manipulate the latter into betraying the Section, launching a dangerous cat-and-mouse game in the "The Richmond File" series finale.

Recommended Episodes

The Good Ones Are All Dead (S01E01) - Under threat of being placed in a red file, Callan is coerced into helping the Section hand over an ex-SS officer, Strauss, to the Israelis. Introduces the main cast and sets up the hostile dynamic between Callan and Colonel Leslie. An emotional performance by Edward Woodward at the end.

The Most Promising Girl of Her Year (S02E02) - Callan must prove that a young biochemist is not giving information to the East. Introduces Snell and his interrogation methods. Also features an intelligent and sympathetic female character, whose ethical principles make her the true heroine of the story.

Let's Kill Everybody (S02E05) - A freelance German mercenary organisation that specialises in eliminating foreign security agencies has its sights set on the Section. An aptly named episode, so I won't spoil anything except to say that no one is who they seem...

Heir Apparent (S02E06) - Callan and Meres must fetch the new Hunter from East Germany. This might as well be a Callan/Meres fanfic with the amount of slash in it. Our two agents "go on a hols" together, sharing a sleeping car, drinking on the town, and navigating a minefield right on the edge of the Iron Curtain.

Death of a Hunter (S02E15) - A hunter dies, but which one? Is it the hard-bitten Callan, the laconic Meres, the enigmatic Hunter or someone else? I debated including a synopsis because the title already gives too much away. One of Edward Woodward's finest performances, loaded with pain and anguish, and a definitive Callan/Meres story.

Where Else Could I Go? (S03E01) - After five months in the hospital recuperating from near-fatal gunshot wounds, Callan returns to the Section to find the upstart Cross after his position. Under the doubting eye of his superior, the agent must prove that he still has the will to kill. Introduces Cross and William Squire's Hunter, probably the most iconic Hunter of the series. Also contains fodder for Callan/Lonely in the way of a very protective Callan.

A Village Called 'G' (S03E04) - The entire Section goes on red alert when Liz, Hunter's ever-punctual secretary, fails to show up for work. Trying to trace her, Callan begins to suspect that Liz's disappearance involves not an enemy from the present, but a ghost from her past. Liz finally gets a turn in the limelight, and we're treated to some background on her childhood.

Breakout (S03E08) - By surrendering to the police, wily KGB operative Nikolai Lubin seeks safety in a British prison, out of reach of Hunter and the Section's interrogators. Hunter, however, has other plans - engineering Lubin's "escape" under the guise of a KGB operation. A rare episode in which Callan and Cross display some teamwork.

Call Me Sir! (S04E02) - Upon Callan's return, dire circumstances force him to accept a new position within the Section - one that affords an entirely different perspective on his work, particularly regarding his relationship with Lonely. Callan receives a promotion he never asked for. More I cannot say without spoiling the plot.

If He Can, So Could I (S04E05) - Cross's behavior on his previous assignment calls into question his fitness for service. Nevertheless, Callan assigns his former rival the perilous task of protecting a dissident Russian poet. Snell puts Cross through the wringer in this one, and the way Cross cracks reflects Callan's own insecurities. The ending scene between Callan/Lonely is absolutely phenomenal - one of the few times Callan goes to pieces emotionally, revealing the enormous strain he and his fellow agents are under. Edward Woodward won a BAFTA for this performance.

I Never Wanted the Job (S04E08) - After witnessing a gangster's execution, Lonely runs afoul of the killers and the police, jeopardizing both his cover and Callan's life. The closest this series gets to fluff. Some cute Callan/Meres/Hunter interaction plus an offhand comment by a character about how Callan must be "queer" for Lonely make this a very shippy episode.

The Richmond File: Call Me Enemy (S04E11) - Alone at a remote safe house, Callan debriefs a high-ranking prospective defector - a man known as Richmond, who promises to reveal a traitor within the Section. This is it. This is what spy dramas are about. Not fast car chases or gunfights, but two people on opposite sides trying to manipulate each other with deception and lies. Edward Woodward and T.P. McKenna give career-defining performances in this battle of wits between veteran agents who have more in common with each other than their respective employers... or do they? The episode is like a stage play and provides a rare bit of history on Callan and Meres.

External Links

YouTube Playlist - The entire series ripped and uploaded by yours truly.

Video Downloads - High quality video encodes of the entire series, again done by yours truly, as well as scripts for all episodes (including the missing ones) and other goodies.

Big Finish - New audio adaptations of the Callan short stories.

Digital Tapestries Fan Site - An old fan site with creator interviews, character profiles, and synopses of all the episodes in seasons 1-2.

Michael J. Bird's Fan Site - Another fan site that includes scans of the Callan short stories and links to a few missing episode scripts.

It's So Last Century - Reviews of most commercial Callan releases along with some newspaper article scans.

#callan #tv shows #edward woodward #anthony valentine #russell hunter #patrick mower #david callan #toby meres #hunter

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ruffiorocks · 6 years ago

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Haley and her attempt to conscript Kara back into the DEO(my overthinking for today)

Sooo i’ve been re watching the episode where Col Haley finds out that Kara is Supergirl.

Now Kara was dismissed from the DEO by the President, although whether this was an official honorable discharge etc. remains to be seen, because as far as i remember Kara was never actually officially part of the DEO. She just appeared and helped out etc. We’ve never seen her sign papers or get a pay check. So after Jonn left she was merely tolerated because she hadn't refused to do as she was told yet.

So, Kara was there via the goodwill and grace of Alex, Haley and the President. Kara is not officially a soldier of the USA.

The President of course asks Kara to tell him who she really is, Kara refuses because of the ‘my family and friends will be in danger’ line she has been spouting since day one. But this is basically null and void when pretty much every one she meets she reveals her secret to, plus last weeks nonsense! Now im not a massive fan of the President, but he did make a valid point. Everyone else who works for the military or DEO or the government and he himself has to have their identity known. He also points out that his family are with the secret service, they are in danger. Col Haley’s family are in danger, any police officers family is in danger, heck, all of Alex’s family and friends are in danger because she doesn't have a ‘secret identity’. But Kara as much as i love her, holds herself to a different standard.The President dismissed her because Kara wasnt willing to follow the rules and accept the same risks everyone else takes. Of course Kara being Supergirl it may have a bigger effect, but its the same as anyone else. Everyone else takes those risks, but Kara sees herself above all of that. She wants to be part of the DEO but isnt willing to play by the same rules as everyone else there has to.

Now Haley makes it her personal to find out who Kara is but only AFTER Kara decides she is going to keep doing what she has been doing, ignoring the government orders. Now i get it, she can’t ignore cries for help. But here’s the thing, Haley and the President were content to let Kara be, until she started interfering in things that really weren't her concern, and she had been told to stay out. Kara’s incessant need to be a hero and essentially holding herself above the laws of man led Haley to try and find out who she is to keep her under control. Which when you really think about it, is understandable, Kara is a loose canon and a law onto herself. (And no, i haven't forgotten what a douche Haley has been and the President is.)

So Haley finds out and she tells Kara that she is going to recommend to the President that Kara be ‘conscripted’ back into the DEO and how Kara Danvers life is over. The key word here is ‘conscripted’. As far as i know the USA military doesn't have conscription, which in case some dont know means forced military service. Haley and the President would be breaking the laws of their own country! Kara is a US citizen, and since Marsden passed the Alien Amnesty Act, ALL aliens have the same rights as any human US citizen. That means that they cannot be conscripted into the military. As far as we know the Alien Amnesty Act hasnt been repealed. We know that the military have forced aliens to work for them, the morei that were tortured by Haley. But all that was pre-Amnesty Act. Now i get that sometimes (especially in TV shows) that rules are broken. But Haley seems to be one for law and order! So to outwardly suggest something that breaks the law and the constitution (i dont know much about that but doesnt it prevent forced military service unless its war time?)

If it happened, then Kara could have exposed the illegality of what she was being forced to do. Yes that would mean that the DEO would reveal who she is, but that is a hell of a gamble. If it came out that the DEO and the President were forcing aliens to work for them, then how long before the rest of the alien population kicks off and protests against alien conscription? Alien conscription but not human conscription? It makes the Alien Amnesty Act null and void and would probably lead to a civil war. Bad move Col Haley!!

Then there is last weeks episode ‘Hi Im Kara Zor El, citizen of Earth’ im not even going to waste my time on that nonsense!

#supergirl #alex danvers #col haley #kara danvers #kara zor el

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thatfilmduderyan · 6 years ago

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Odd Man Out (1947) - Dir: Carol Reed

The hunt for Carol Reed....

I’m on a bit of a black and white trip at the moment. I’ve spent some time in the evenings this week just looking up new black and white films I’ve not had the chance to discover. I started off this mission by looking further into Ealing films, however the number of ‘darker’ Ealing films isn’t as large as I’d like. By tradition I am drawn to the darker black and white films out there; it’s mostly because I feel like they hold a vibe that is so often lost in modern day films. There are of course instances... Girl With A Dragon Tattoo (the Fincher one) perfectly emulates the modern day noir to me. Part of the reason that film speaks so loudly to me is that Europe has a magic about it when it comes to noirs; it captivates me, so naturally Sweden is a perfect backdrop for that particular story. I guess you could say I’ve got a penchant for Euro-noir. This is something I felt when I got to know Berlin a bit better through friends who knew the city well, and it’s something that still draws me to the city now. I think about those dark corners of European cities which hold hidden gems that are so often under-appreciated. Filming a story in Berlin is something on my bucket list.

Although it may seem like I’m digressing here, I’m actually stitching a point towards why I’ve watched ‘Odd Man Out’ 4 times in the last 2 days (yes that’s a bit obsessive). After my ‘Ealing hunt’ proved to be not as fruitful as I’d liked I decided to look towards other areas of my existing black and white favourite’s list to see what variables might point me in the right direction. Naturally the greatest Euro-noir in my collection is The Third Man, so I decided to look further into Carol Reed’s films and thus this bore me a lead to ‘Odd Man Out’. I’d also found a page that contained a list of noir films on a film site called Mubi, which was something I’d never heard of before. Mubi is said to offer ‘30 hand-picked films, a new one everyday. Available to watch on demand, offline, and across devices’ which is interesting. It’s got my interest and I’ll be looking to try it out and report back at a later date; but on that list I’d found on the site, via a google search, was ‘Odd Man Out’ (view the list here: https://mubi.com/lists/british-noir-classics). This was now a double nod to the release so I decided to check the film out. Naturally it did not disappoint, and I think it’s now overtaken The Third Man in my book of inspirational classic noir films.

There’s a certain magic to the story that’s presented, and it’s a commentary on how a working class community operates in the face of moral dilemma. I’ve always felt interested in Northern Ireland/Ireland and a pull to visit the country more (my great granddad was from Belfast originally on my mothers side, so perhaps that Irish blood is causing it). What’s interesting about the story for me is it’s lack of ‘do the right thing’ preachiness. Sometimes in older films you can sense this underlying message about ‘always respecting the law’ but I’ve never felt that to be a true reflection of humanity. I think this is especially true in war time propaganda films made in the 40s that seek to urge citizens to stick to the straight and narrow during turbulent times. Who can blame them really; but this for me means that I can only watch so many of these films within a certain period. There was an amazing charm to Odd Man Out that kept dragging me back in. At one point the hardworking ‘all weather’ cab driver says to Johnny “I’m not against ya, but I’m not for ya” and this seems to be the message from many characters who Johnny meets in the film as he tries to evade the law and get to a place of safety. There’s a respect amongst all the characters for him and his organisation, but not one of loyalty. The same could be said for the police too, and the armed forces which play a small part (helping Johnny into a cab at one point). Many times we hear “don’t get involved” and I feel like this represents a sort of well oiled harmony within the community showcased. Everyone works in the machine even if they don’t really get what the other parts maybe up to. A common respect flows and there’s a charm to this dark waterside city.

Beyond the story are some incredible visuals that make its cinematography a further point of inspiration. Camera movements positioned perfectly to accent lines or movements of characters. A sharpness of the composition is present that makes the film all the more striking. There’s also visual commentary on the community at points with documentary style shots of people retreating back behind closed doors, or closely watching a moments of action unfold. Directors who seek to add in such moments instantly get my admiration as they give further backstory and a sense of ‘sonder’ to each character or corner of a world. Naturally you can’t discuss cinematography without the art direction and in this case the sets are more complex upon closer inspection, with fake trams, trains and boats moving in the background. The greatest moment for me in terms of this is when a group of soldiers spot their tram at the end of a long street. The tram pulls into shot (clearly a cut out on a track system) and they run down the street after it. Details like this are so often lost these days with VFX and I feel you can never get the same element of 3D no matter how close they might feel. I found myself wanting to walk around this dark city at points and this was down to how real it felt on the screen.

I’ve grabbed a few moments from the film above, but it really doesn’t do it justice. I recommend all serious noir fans get a copy of this film asap and dive right in, you won’t be disappointed. Would be directors; it’s a must for your list of films to see.

Find out more about the release over on the Criterion Collection’s website by clicking here.

#carol reed #odd man out #black and white #noir

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master-sass-blast · 7 years ago

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Strong as Stone -Part Ten, First Half

*stares at title* I promised myself that I wouldn’t start a multi-parter this week. I promised.

*sighs* My idea self-control needs work, as does my realistic perspective of work actually required.

Well, hi there! Welcome back to the fun house!

Last time, we bore witness to the Wakandan New Year and watched Okoye navigate a family-oriented holiday without a (biological) family to speak of.

Feels were felt, by many.

(I think I could label all of my writing like that: feels were felt. It does seem to be a special ability of mine.

Or, perhaps, I should just stick to “ANGST QUEEN.”)

This time, we get to watch Okoye and M’Baku start their vacation together in Birnin Zana.

Rating: T for swearing, sexual themes, and mentions of death.

Warnings: Enough fluff to cause a heart attack, implied sex, and too much snark to handle.

Pairings: Okoye x M’Baku.

@the-last-hair-bender

The life of a Dora Milaje is not an easy one, my loves. Even though you will be surrounded by your sisters in arms, you may often find yourselves lonely.

The unfortunate reality is that there are not many who can keep up with the constant shift from stone to human and back. You may even find that it wears on your families at times --common, but unfortunate.

While patience on your part will be necessary, keep a sharp eye for those who can take your different forms in stride. If you find them, do not let go of them if you don’t have to.

You will never truly know how rare they are.

It was a morning off like any other.

Sugary, (relatively) unhealthy breakfast food? Check.

Usual set of cartoons? Check.

Comfortable clothes? Check.

However, most mornings off didn’t leave her with a tight, tingling sense of anticipation in her stomach. Most mornings off didn’t have her at the edge of her seat, ears straining to pick up any sound in the hallway.

Most mornings didn’t contain two messages from Ayo, one with a reference to a good chiropractor and one recommending a good brand of lube.

Okoye had sent back a picture message of her flipping her best friend off.

She sighed, forced herself to relax onto her couch, and took another bite out of her breakfast pastry. Waiting at the edge of your seat won’t get him here any faster--

A knock sounded at the door, and Okoye shot out of her seat, stopped, and forced herself to walk to the door and open it at a calm, normal pace.

M’Baku grinned down at her, leaning against the door frame. “Does a certain General Okoye live here?”

Okoye grinned back. “No, but you can come in anyway.”

M’Baku laughed and leaned down to kiss her. “It’s good to see you my love. The last two days were agony without your company.”

Okoye ushered him into her apartment and closed the door. “My experience was the same. I’m so glad you’re here.”

“To think, we could’ve avoided all that agony if you’d just brought me back with you on the first night.”

Okoye rolled her eyes as she laughed. “I know you would’ve preferred that option, but I needed time to get my apartment into order. Try as I might, there is always something growing in my fridge every time I come back.”

M’Baku chuckled. “Nice.” He set down his bag and took a moment to survey her living space. “This is very different from how we style things in the Jabari lands.”

Okoye shrugged as she looked around her living room. “I don’t know if you could call this styled...”

The only matching set of furniture she had was her couch and the three chairs that came with them --which she had chosen solely for their comfort. Three mismatched bar stools sat at the kitchen counter. The cubbies under the stand her TV sat on were filled with different souvenirs from her travels outside of Wakanda. The two end tables that bracketed her couch were different shapes and colors --a choice she’d made to annoy Ayo, and a choice she hadn’t regretted as of yet. Different pieces of art that she’d found in different thrift markets hung on the walls.

“No, it is,” M’Baku insisted. “It’s eclectic; it has rhythm.” He nodded at the end tables. “Did those... come like that?”

Okoye shook her head. “I mismatched them to annoy Ayo.”

M’Baku chuckled. “I’ve done stuff like that to irritate Dewani. Am I sleeping on the couch?”

“Only if you piss me off.” Okoye opened the door to her bedroom. “If not, I’d hope you’d stay in here, with me.”

“Well, I don’t plan on pissing you off.” M’Baku set his bag in her bedroom, then nodded at her TV. “What are those?”

“Cartoons. I like watching them during my time off.”

M’Baku grinned. “Really? You like watching cartoons?”

“They’re funny and cute! Besides, an adviser over the Dora Milaje program would tell you that having something completely separate from your life as a soldier is both natural and recommended.”

“It’s fine; I’m not here to judge.”

Okoye raised an eyebrow. “Then why are you still grinning like that?”

“Because every time I turn around, I’m learning something new about you that I didn’t expect. I like it. It’s exciting.” He kissed her forehead gently. “So, what’s our first order of business?”

“Actually, I thought we’d hit the market first.”

“Wasn’t one of the reasons you gave me for delaying my arrival for you to stock up on groceries?”

Okoye smacked his chest with her hand. “I did! I just wasn’t sure about some of the specifics of the vegetarian diet! I wanted your input!”

M’Baku snorted. “It’s not a religious thing. There’s just no space for raising cattle in the mountains. It would be impractical to eat meat.”

Okoye put her hands on her hips. “Have you ever eaten meat in your life?”

“No.”

“Exactly. Introducing it to your system now --especially as a core part of dishes for over a week--would leave you in a world of pain. Trust me. Besides, I thought you’d like the market.”

M’Baku grinned and kissed her cheek. “Lead the way.”

Her instincts, as it turned out, were completely right.

M’Baku loved the market. The natural thrum of energy and din of voices seemed to help him settle right in to the new environment. Dressed in linen clothes, dyed with vibrant colors, he blended in perfectly as well --save for his sheer size.

Okoye smiled as she watched him examine baskets of produce with the intensity of a scholar studying a book. “I see you took your sister’s advice about the clothes.”

M’Baku shrugged as he studied a basket of cowpeas. “You dress down when you’re with me. I dress down when I’m with you. It seemed fair.” He tugged at the collar of his shirt, fanning it against his chest. “Besides, it’s fucking hot down here.”

Okoye patted his shoulder sympathetically. “We can wrap things up here and head back in before the hottest part of the day hits.”

M’Baku gave her a pained look. “It gets hotter?”

Okoye laughed as they started walking again. “So, what do you think of our market?”

“Not all that different from the ones in the Jabari lands, save for the meat. You seem to have a very wide array of produce. There’s a great deal of options that I don’t recognize.”

“Well, I’d imagine a warmer growing climate would have something to do with that.”

M’Baku nodded. “Yes. Do the farmers use vibranium to help grow the plants?”

Okoye shrugged. “I wouldn’t really know. I’d imagine that there’s some element of vibranium use to help non-indigenous crops fair better, but I couldn’t say for sure.”

“I forget. Not everyone is a farmer down here.”

“I know who would know. I could set up a meeting if you’d like.”

M’Baku gave her an incredulous look. “Really? You could do that?”

Okoye adjusted her sunglasses so she could peek over the top of them and gave M’Baku the most glamorous look she could must. “I am General Okoye of the Dora Milaje. I have many contacts across Wakanda.”

M’Baku laughed and put his hand on her waist, drawing her closer in. “Come on. I think the heat’s getting to you faster than it’s getting to me.”

As soon as they got back to her apartment, M’Baku took off his shirt and flopped onto the hardwood floor of her living room.

Okoye laughed as she turned the ceiling fan on to its highest setting, taking pity on him. “How are you feeling?”

“Broiled alive.” He groaned as he flipped onto his stomach, letting the fan cool his back. “How do you survive down here? It’s hotter than hell!”

“Acclimation,” Okoye said. “When you’re used to the heat, it’s not as bad.” She handed him a bottle of water. “Staying hydrated helps, too.”

M’Baku downed half the bottle in a few swigs. “I don’t say this to be insulting, but I much prefer the cold.”

Okoye smiled as she sat down on the sofa. “I understand. I prefer the heat of the low lands, but it’s easier to warm up from being cold than to cool off from being hot.”

“See? The Jabari are superior in more than one way.”

Okoye rolled her eyes, amused, as he flipped onto his back again. “Whatever you say, darling.”

A gentle rainstorm swept through the valley during the late evening, cooling the air down as night set in. Crickets chirped and bullfrogs croaked, taking over the sounds of the city as her citizens bedded down for the night.

Okoye had opened her bedroom window to let the damp, cool breeze float through the room. The ceiling fan was on, keeping the room comfortable.

M’Baku was bent over, peering out the window as he leaned against the frame. “Everything’s really different at night. It’s almost like camping in the valleys. You wouldn’t be able to tell from the palace.”

Okoye smiled as she watched him. “It took me some adjusting the first few times I stayed here. It was bizarre to be so alone, to not have to be in contact with people if I didn’t want to be.”

“I can imagine.” M’Baku stood and stretched. “It feels like a Jabari summer.”

“I take it you’re comfortable, then.”

“More so than I was earlier.” He laid down on the bed next to where she sat. “So, do you have any plans for me this week?”

Okoye shrugged. “I had a few idea. It mostly depends on what you’re game for. We have some museums and libraries I thought you’d like. There are some nature preserves as well, but I’m not sure they’d be the best fit, considering how well you fared today.”

M’Baku shrugged. “We’ll have to play it by ear, but I like the sound of all those options.” He tugged her down to his chest with a playful smile. “Though, I would hope that you accounted for some... quality time as well?”

Okoye grinned back. “Well, that depends on what you mean by ‘quality time.’”

M’Baku started kissing her neck. “Should I show you what I mean?”

“You know what? I think you should.”

She woke up to the sensation of the end of her bed sinking under a heavy weight. Okoye rolled onto her back and squinted at the end of the bed.

M’Baku smiled and held out a steaming mug of coffee to her. “Good morning.”

She had to clear her throat twice before she found her voice. “You figured out the coffee machine.”

He snorted. “Just because I am a Jabari doesn’t mean I can’t use trial and error.” He sipped at his own mug. “So, I was thinking about the ideas you threw around yesterday, for how we could spend our time while I’m here?”

Okoye propped herself up against her pillows. “Yeah?”

“I mean, I like the sound of all of them, but I came here to be with you. I don’t want to spend our time together running this, that, and the other way. I want to do what you do during your time off.”

Okoye shrugged. “Unfortunately, I’m not that interesting when I have time off. I mostly watch cartoons and keep to myself. I figured, since you spend a lot of time doing things and being outside, that you’d want to see and do different things.”

M’Baku sat back, expression contemplative. “Ah. Well, you’re not wrong...”

Okoye tapped her fingernails against the side of her mug. “How about... I think you’ll like the central library the best, and there’s an animal observation center that is air conditioned. We could go to those place to get out of the apartment during the day without forcing you to endure heatstroke. Then, during the mornings and evenings, we can visit some of my favorite places throughout Birnin Zana while it’s cooler out. How does that sound?”

“It sounds good.” He grinned, then set his cup on the nightstand before crawling up the bed towards her. “But, admittedly, I’m not in any hurry to start all that.”

Okoye laughed and quickly set her coffee mug next to his before he could pull her to him. “Oh, really?”

“Well, I mean you’re wearing my shirt. How am I supposed to resist you?”

She managed to get out a short laugh before he covered her lips with a kiss. She wound her arms around his neck and let out a happy sigh.

#sass writes #black panther fanfiction #okoye x m'baku #okoye #m'baku #i wanted to write more #but it would've been five days coming #so consider this a teaser #the next part will be more plot and character oriented #sometimes you just have to play with fluff #what happens when you send a jabari to a hot place #he suffers #duh #wakanda forever

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hidden-but · 4 years ago

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The statue is remarkable. It does commemorate 82 children gassed in Chełmno. But the children were not Jewish, which OP might know if they read more than the picture description before posting it - especially with a #weremember tag.

The citizens villages of Lidice and Ležáky were exterminated not as a part of the Nazi plan to achieve “racial purity” of their Reich, but as a retribution for the assassination of the Acting Reich-Protector Reinhard Heydrich, by Czechoslovak soldiers Jozef Gabčík and Jan Kubiš operating abroad as a part of the Operation Anthropoid.

After Heydrich’s death, gestapo failed to find the assailants hiding in Prague (even after about 150 people being executed), Hitler demanded retributions. The village of Lidice was falsely associated with aiding Operation Anthropoid.

On 10th July 1942 all men from the village over 15 years of age were shot (173 of them),while the women (203) and children (105) were taken away. The vast majority of women were sent to Ravensbrück concentration camp where 53 of them died. The children were sorted according to the suitability for germanisation, and either sent to Nazi orphanages (where six of them died), or the Chełmno extermination camp (where 82 of them were gassed).

The village was burned to the ground, destroyed with explosives, the graveyard was dug out and looted.

Similar thing happened to the village of Ležáky two weeks later - although on smaller scale, as there were only 33 adults (men and women) living in the village.

Gabčík, Kubiš and the resistance members that aided them were eventually turned in to gestapo and either died during the siege of the Church of Saints Cyril and Methodius were they ended up hiding, or killed themselves not to be captured. The bishop of the church took all the blame for harbouring fugitives on himself, to protect the other members of his church, was tortured and executed later in 1942, and later canonised as St Gorazd, a martyr of orthodox church.

After the war, 17 children from Lidice and 2 from Ležáky were identified alive in german families or orphanages.

I understand that the statue of the murdered children is haunting, but a crucial part of remembering the actual facts and not treating the memorials of different war crimes occurring at the same time as interchangeable.

So if you really wish to remember the Jewish children of Czechoslovakia, I recommend the Farewell Memorial:

- a memorial of the evacuation of 669 mostly Jewish children from Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia that were sent to the UK thanks to a coordinated international effort headed by Nicolas Winton in Prague. It was easier and cheaper to obtain visa for children, so their parents decided to sent at least them to safety. Most of the parents did not survive the Holocaust, and the children stayed in their adoptive families in the UK. The last train on 1.9.1939 never left, and most of the 250 children on it died later with their families.

Or there is the Gate of No Return, at the Praha-Bubny railway station, where trains carrying about 50 000 of the 80 000 Czech Holocaust victims originated (including 42 members of the artist’s own family):

There was at least one Jewish woman in Lidice - she was called Štěpánka Mikešová, and she was reported to gestapo and arrested, deported and then murdered in Auschwitz. Her arrest happened a week before the massacre of the whole village.

So, OP, please, next time you make a Rememberance post, please check and make sure that you know what you’re posting, if only to respect the people the memorial is commemorating.

Because otherwise you end up rewriting the same history you’re claiming to remember.

July 1942, 82 Jewish children from Lidice (tiny village in Czechoslovakia) were transferred to the Łódź Gestapo office and then transported to an extermination camp at Chełmno, where they were gassed to death. This remarkable sculpture by Marie Uchytilová commemorates them.

#NeverForget

#NeverAgain #Holocaust

#weremember

Afshine Emrani

#holocaust #holocaust remembrance day #pls don't take pictures from the internet and make a post about them without making sure what's in them #this is not to diss ppl who reblogged it #no one can fact-check every single thing on their dash #but this is my country's history and the statue looked familiar even before I read the description #so here have the whole history behind the memorial

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thenuanceddebater · 7 years ago

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Civil War Response to @uppermandible

So, for whatever reason, I can’t reblog the response @upermandible made to my Civil War post which you can find here. I don’t know why that is, but assuming that I wasn’t blocked and that it’s a tumblr glitch, I’ll do the response here instead.

so because the union made a law that nobody could leave it the south was just supposed to sit there and take its unfair treatment?

No, but this law “the Union” made (which actually comes from the Constitution which was ratified by both the North and the South) means that the Confederacy has no legitimate right to secede under US law. That means that every single action the Confederacy takes is an act of rebellion against the United States, and that under US law the Confederate States of America doesn’t actually exist. Hence, why the term “Civil War” is still applicable legally speaking. You don’t seem to understand this based on the initial analogy you used (which discussed divorce-- which is a legal matter) and based on your later thoughts in this response as well.

lets remember that the southern states were disproportionately footing the bill for federal expenses, and were being locked out on how that money was spent, because they had less power in the federal government than the northern states

Disproportionately footing the bill for what exactly? They were being taxed based on population. They artificially exapnded their population numbers through the 3/5 Compromise in the US Constitution. They also agreed to the form of government that was now instituting the bills they didn’t like very much. Also, if you really want to pretend that economics and taxation (or even tariffs) were the primary cause of the Civil War, you’re going to need a heck of a lot of evidence. Since most of the documents of secession didn’t actually mention economics, taxes, or tariffs in the slightest. Do you know what most of them did mention? Slavery. And mistreatment because of slavery. So, please provide me with some primary sources that prove your position here. Otherwise, I’m going to dismiss your argument based on the evidence that actually exists. Oh, and this entire thing is just one gigantic switching the goalpost from “the Confederacy was legitimate in attacking Fort Sumter” to “the Confederacy had moral and understandable reasons for attacking Fort Sumter”. Moral and understandable reasons =/= legitimate.

the south was not going to be able to afford much of what the federal government was pushing for, and they were otherwise helpless to stop it. their only recourse to this was simply to pack their shit, show Lincoln their favorite finger, then make like horse turds and hit the trail.

You... are aware that the South was wealthier than the North prior to the Civil War, right? Much of that wealth was in land and slaves, but still the South was not a poor area of the United States. Also, none of this makes the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter legitimate. That’s not how legitimacy works. You can tell whatever sob story you want about oppression, but legally speaking oppression does not guarantee legitimacy (especially when that oppression is mostly imagined as opposed to actually extant).

throughout the interim leading up to the firing on fort sumter, the union was increasingly aggressive to the seceding states. deploying troops to occupy Kentucky, blockading the south, etc.

...And we’re just going to completely ignore how the Confederacy was attempting to seize federal forts and weapons? Because that doesn’t fit the narrative? Okay. Oh, and also Kentucky declared neutrality at the beginning of the war, but after an attempt by Confederate General Leonidas Polk to take the state failed, they petitioned the Union Army for help. So, that goes against your narrative as well. Especially because Kentucky didn’t come fully under Union control until 1862- well after Fort Sumter fell and the Civil War began. So, maybe check your facts on that one. They seem to be a little off.

As for blockading the South, you are aware that seeing as the Confederacy had absolutely no legal legitimacy whatsoever it was considered an “area in rebellion” and thus was automatically considered essentially at-war with the United States right? The idea of the blockade was to bring the areas in rebellion back under US control without actually engaging in pitched-battle against American citizens. And again, the United States wasn’t the only side being aggressive. You can’t look at the facts of the situation and tell me that the Confederacy was peaceful and the Confederates were a bunch of angels. Well, I mean you can. But you’d be really, really wrong.

Most the war was fought in the south.

Over the course of the war the union lost 642,427 of its 2,672,341-strong military. the confederacy lost 483,026 of its 750,000-strong military.

Irrelevant information is irrelevant. None of this means anything when discussing whether or not the Confederacy’s secession is legitimate. Although, it is worth pointing out that the Union had the harder victory objective, and the South only needed to fight a defensive war.

Sherman’s army burned everything from atlanta to the coast.

...You are aware that the Union aren’t the only people who burned/ destroyed things right? And you are also aware that the burning of Atlanta wholesale actually wasn’t Sherman’s original plan (or even his plan at all), right? And of course you’re aware that Sherman didn’t in fact burn Savanna Georgia. So, that’s a little misleading.

very little mercy was shown to even civilians in the south by the union forces

Aaaaand this is downright false. Actually, even the wildest Union troops tended to act much, much better than expected in Confederate households and toward Confederate women. If you don’t believe me, I recommend you read diaries of Confederate matrons who were occupied by Union soldiers, or read some literaure collecting these accounts if you don’t want to track them down individually. I recommend When Sherman Marched North from the Sea: Resistance on the Confederate Home Front. That should clear up some of your misconceptions.

where even generals ordered that historical monuments to be vandalized

Not the monuments! Oh the humanity! Still, regardless of whether or not this is accurate (I really don’t know what you’re talking about- it’s general enough to refer to quite a variety of things) destruction of historical monuments is not the same as monumental cruelty to civilian populations. You’re going to need more than just assertions in order to prove that. Sorry.

even after the war the north took great pains to keep the south crippled

I mean, if you want to talk Reconstruction, we can talk Reconstruction. But, I’m not going to make this post even longer by detailing all the ways this statement is wrong when Reconstruction is unrelated to the Civil War and especially unrelated to the legitimacy of the Confederate Secession. Actually, most of your post is irrelevant to that point.

even today the south is still responsible for the bulk of federal funds while hardly having a say in how it’s spent.

...You actually can’t be serious with this. Texas (2), Florida (4) [(which isn’t really the South any more)] Georgia (9), North Carolina (10) and Virginia (12) are the Confederate states in the top 15 of states by GDP. Next is Tennessee and Louisiana at 24 which rounds out the Confederate States in the top 25 of states by GDP. South Carolina is 26, Alabama 27, Arkansas is 34, and Mississippi is 37. So, no. The South is definitely not responsible for the majority of federal funds. I have no idea where that nonsense is coming from. But it’s completely and utterly absurd.

it can be called the war of northern aggression because that is exactly how it went down.

...Except it didn’t. You failed in proving that. Sorry.

it can be called the war between the states because it was

I mean, sure. That’s a term that;s more popular in the South, but it’s not blatantly incorrect like “War of Northern Aggression”, though the framing is a little off. Also, fun fact: It was called “The Great Rebellion” in the Union during the war.

civil war isn’t really accurate because the confederate states of america was a sovereign nation.

...No it wasn’t. Not legally. If the Confederacy won the Civil War, it’s possible that the war would have been seen as the Confederacy’s Revolutionary War, but they lost. The Confederacy had no legal legitimacy and was not recognized by the United States government as a legal nation. It was an area in rebellion. Simply declaring that you are now a sovereign nation doesn’t actually make you a sovereign nation. Just like simply saying you’re divorced doesn’t actually make you divorced. So, seeing as it was a gigantic rebellion the term Civil War suits it quite nicely.

And before you even try the American Revolution argument, the United States was not legitimate prior to the Revolutionary War. The Founding Fathers knew this. That’s part of the reason why signing the Declaration of Independence was so courageous. Victory in the Revolutionary War is what made the United States a legitimate nation. Without that victory, even though the Americans did have legitimate political grievance with the British Empire (as they actually were unrepresented unlike the South) they would not have created a legitimate nation through the Declaration of Independence.

All in all, this was a pretty weak rebuttal. You shifted the goalposts, made assertions without evidence, and got your facts wrong. You’re going to need to do a heck of a lot better if you want to continue the debate. Because this? This was nowhere near good enough. And I think you know that.

#nuance #rebuttal #civil war #war of northern aggression #nonsense #idiocy #history #historical inaccuracy #shifting the goalposts #and failing at it #@uppermandible

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praximeter · 7 years ago

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I personally love fake history style fics and the level of detail you use in night war (along with amazing well thought out description of Bucky's inner monologue) really pulls me in and enhances the raw feelings Bucky has. I really want to get across that I love your style of writing as it gives a better understanding of all the stakes at play in buckys situation from major incidents to little asides about social expectations etc. 1/2

So what I’m trying to get at is that I admire the amount of research you do for this series and was wondering if you had any favourite resources (documentaries, books, forums, sites) or anecdotes about ww2 era that you found useful/ interesting or enjoyed most? Any recommendations at all to check out for this era/subject thankyou. 2/2

Hey anon! Thanks for writing in, and thanks for your kind comments! 💕 I’m so happy you’re enjoying the story.

Let me apologize in advance for the absurd and hilarious length of this answer. I’ve been meaning to do a “research, sources, and methods” post for a while for meta reasons, and, well, here it is.

My primary source of research material is definitely books, but there are a lot of amazing resources online including material published by the U.S. Government (reports, publications, etc.) that helps me be as accurate as possible when it comes to troop movements, etc. There are about a thousand documentaries out there about the war, but you can’t go wrong with Ken Burns’ The War or World War II in Color.

My favorite single-volume history of WWII is probably Inferno: The World at War, 1939-1945 by Max Hastings. It covers all theaters and it draws very heavily on primary source material–journals and messages and even letters taken from the bodies of soldiers. Its focus is on the human experience of the war rather than on a detailed military history (X brigade of Y Corps marched Z kilometers to fight a pitched battle…etc.). One of my favorite bits from that book (of which some parts made it into The Night War) is this:

“The ground for fifty yards outside is MUD—six inches deep, glistening, sticky, holding pools of water,” gunner office John Guest wrote home. “Great excavations in the mud, leaving miniature alps of mud, show where other tents have been pitched in the mud, and moved on account of the mud to other places in the mud. The cumulative psychological experience of mud… cannot be described.” [p.447]

As much as I wanted to just plagiarize this entire letter, I tried to evoke the horrible exhaustion of the mud in a few places in The Night War, such as:

I want is quiet, just some quiet and rest and to be warm with no fucking rain and no mud and no mortars but most of all I want this to be over. [September 27, 1943)

Freak accident with mortar tube in Harry’s squad and we have two dead because of I think a malfunction with mud or something I don’t know. [October 11, 1943]

Short on rations as it has been impossible conditions—this fucking mud—and we did not get resupplied before this assault so me, Glenn and Castellano have been going to each foxhole to take stock of what we have and split the difference as needed. Which means my own foxhole is a mud pit, these little shits better be grateful. [October 13, 1943]

Another great resource for writing about Bucky’s Sicily/Italy campaign was The Liberator: One World War II Soldier’s 500-Day Odyssey from the Beaches of Sicily to the Gates of Dachau by Alex Kershaw, who is really more of a pop historian than an academic like Hastings. Nonetheless, he writes on a lot of different WWII-era subjects that are all focused on individual stories, and his works are great gateway books into more rigorous nonfiction about the war.

I’m including below a list that is not comprehensive but rather represents some of the works I’ve either found most helpful in writing The Night War or I just plain enjoyed. I’m so sorry anon, this is not what you were probably looking for!

[holy hell is there a lot under this cut]

Military History

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William L. Shirer

A definitive history by a guy who was the CBS reporter stationed in Berlin in the late 30s.

Inferno: The World At War, 1939-1945 by Max Hastings

My personal favorite single-volume history, and one that inspired a number of the Commandos’ experiences, such as their encounter with the Czechoslovakian family (Jan and Alžběta) near Kozmice (Operation Umbrella). The focus on Alžběta’s fear for her daughters and the risk of violence she perceived to them came directly from some of the stores in Inferno about Italian civilians who were brutalized and raped by “liberators.”

The Memoirs of Field-Marshal Kesselring by Albert Kesselring

Interesting to read the German perspective, though I admit I mostly skimmed this. Kesselring is one of those guys who got bizarrely recast as a “Good German” after the war, like Rommel, but he committed war crimes in Italy. And he was a Nazi, so.

The Few: The American “Knights of the Air” Who Risked Everything to Fight in the Battle of Britain by Alex Kershaw

Again, more pop history, but there was some good stuff in this one about the day-to-day experiences of RAF pilots, though almost none of that made it into The Night War.

With Wings Like Eagles: A History of the Battle of Britain by Michael Korda

A pretty good, quick primer on the Battle of Britain. Some details from this book made it into The Night War but only in terms of things that Bucky observes (like signs being missing at railway stations).

Overlord: D-Day and the Battle for Normandy by Max Hastings

Hastings is a really superb writer. I didn’t read this cover to cover but I did take some inspiration from it for the Commandos’ Normandy campaign (June 1944 to July 1944).

The Longest Day by Cornelius Ryan

Another classic about D-Day.

The Guns at Last Light: The War in Western Europe, 1944-1945 by Rick Atkinson

Another great history - this is the third in his three-volume history of the war.

Soldiers’ Experiences

Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest by Stephen A. Ambrose

A classic for a reason. This is the basis for the wonderful HBO series Band of Brothers, which is highly recommended and probably kickstarted my love of the era way back when I saw it at 11 years old.

Citizen Soldiers: the U.S. Army from the Normandy Beaches to the Surrender of Germany by Stephen A. Ambrose

Another classic. A great look at the individual experiences of the actual men who fought the war.

Forgotten: The Untold Story of D-Day’s Black Heroes, At Home and at War by Linda Hervieux

This is a primer on the institutionalized racism of the segregated U.S. armed forces and the experiences of black soldiers, though it is by no means comprehensive as it focuses on a single unit. Still, I took some inspiration from this book about what Gabe may have witnessed or experienced himself during his training.

The Liberator: One World War II Soldier’s 500-Day Odyssey from the Beaches of Sicily to the Gates of Dachau by Alex Kershaw

Focuses on a specific commander in the 45th Infantry Division (The “Thunderbirds”) who had a remarkable journey through the war that in some ways mirrored Bucky’s. Kershaw writes pop history but there were some amazing details in this book I used to help flesh out the campaigns in Sicily and Italy especially.

The Road to Victory: The Untold Story of Race and World war II’s Red Ball Express by David P. Colley

Understanding the convoy system was helpful for logistical reasons but also, it gave some flavor to Gabe’s experiences as well. There is one mention of the Red Ball Express in The Night War, after Bucky is injured during Operation Goodwood and is back in England (July 29, 1944):

Thank god for the best friend anybody ever had. Steve busted me out of the clink (this makes the second time)—the sappy bastard tried to carry me like I was his fainting dame. I said no dice pal and hopped along as best I could until we made it outside and there was Gabe with a truck waiting like he was my own personal red ball express.

Politics

Never Surrender: Winston Churchill and Britain’s Decision to Fight Nazi Germany in the Fateful Summer of 1940 by John Kelly

Honestly, had nothing to do with The Night War but I read it because Summer 1940 is one of my favorite stretches of the war and this was a really interesting way to imagine the “what if?” had Britain not held fast against the Nazis.

Citizens of London: The Americans Who Stood with Britain in Its Darkest, Finest Hour by Lynne Olson

One of my favorite WWII historical books ever. It does a stunning job at “setting the stage” of London during the early days of the war.

Resistance Efforts

A Train in Winter: An Extraordinary Story of Women, Friendship, and Resistance in Occupied France by Caroline Moorehead

Probably my favorite book written on the French resistance, full stop. The character of Geneviève Marcel was strongly inspired from some of the incredible women featured in this book.

Village of Secrets: Defying the Nazis in Vichy France by Caroline Moorehead

Did not like this as much as Moorehead’s other work, but it did inspire a really fun Commandos mission that never made it to the final story - basically, the Commandos found themselves in a remote French village in the fall of 1944 and had to organize an ad hoc defense of the village along with several French maquis, who were mostly just boys aged 15-20. Naturally, the Commandos kicked ass and there were some great scenes with Bucky teaching the boys to box and to shoot a rifle. Sadly, it had to get cut for logistics reasons.

Avenue of Spies: A True Story of Terror, Espionage, and One American Family’s Heroic Resistance in Nazi-Occupied France by Alex Kershaw

This book was a little weak on its sources (in my opinion) but it did a good job of evoking what it was like to live and operate in Occupied Paris, which obviously became important in March 1944 for the Commandos.

Sabotage, Espionage, Code-Breaking, & Special Operations

The Women Who Lived for Danger: The Women Agents of SOE in The Second World War by Marcus Binney

This book isn’t that well-written, but it gave me some great ideas for Howling Commandos missions. Sadly, several of those ideas – sabotaging a submarine, for example – never made the final cut. I read this book because I was fleshing out my headcanon for Peggy, whom I imagined to have been part of the SOE prior to joining the SSR. In my headcanon, she’s the one who extracted Dr. Erskine from the Continent, and she got a lot of her training from the various SOE training stations.

Church of Spies: The Pope’s Secret War Against Hitler by Mark Riebling

Honestly, this book was just fun. I liked the little window into German operations and resistance efforts and it also gave me some great insight into the backstabbing, lack of trust, and unhealthy rivalries inside the Reich, which I used in determining how the Hydra organization might function had it been real.

Rogue Heroes: The History of the SAS, Britain’s Secret Special Forces Unit That Sabotaged the Nazis and Changed the Nature of War by Ben McIntyre

Some good stuff on how small special operations units actually operated during the war.

The Secret Lives of Codebreakers: the Men and Women Who Cracked the Enigma Code at Bletchley Park by Sinclair McKay

The inspiration for Peggy’s sister Gwendolyn came from this book. Plus, it’s a very easy, readable primer on codebreaking and Bletchley Park as compared to some of the other tomes that are out there.

Between Silk and Cyanide: A Codemaker’s War, 1941-1945 by Leo Marks

The Cost of Courage by Charles Kaiser

This was the inspiration for Geneviève Marcel’s family’s story.

The Holocaust

So, I studied the Holocaust a little in college and so I don’t have a list of all my sources for it (though the Holocaust doesn’t really play a role in The Night War until February 1945), but here are a few good ones:

Art from the Ashes, edited by Lawrence L. Langer

An amazing collection of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry written about the Holocaust and by Holocaust survivors.

Survival in Auschwitz by Primo Levi

One of the best memoirs on the subject.

The Night Trilogy by Elie Wiesel

This had an enormous impact on my understanding of survivor’s guilt and the exploration of one’s psyche following traumatic experiences.

War and Genocide: A Concise History of the Holocaust by Doris L. Bergen

Kapò, an Italian film about a young Jewish woman in a concentration camp.

Conspiracy, a film about the Wannsee conference.

Miscellaneous

When Books Went to War: The Stories that Helped Win World War II by Molly Guptill Manning

Learned from this book that the single most-read book by American GIs was A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, which, fittingly, I had Bucky read in September ‘43 and send a letter to his mother asking her to buy it for Curly for her birthday.

The Arsenal of Democracy: FDR, Detroit, and an Epic Quest to Arm an America At War by A.J. Baime

There’s a pithy saying about the war that goes like this: “The war was won because of Russian blood, British Intelligence, and American Industry.” Something like 40% of all American industrial output went to arming the other Allies. It’s CRAZY. And the story of how that industry ramped up from 1940 through the end of the war is really interesting, and this one in particular I really enjoyed. Anyway, the only thing from this book that really ended up in The Night War was this:

I remember Castellano in my face yelling “whatever fucking happened to a goddamn bomber an hour?” right after another stuka strafed us not even twenty yards away and Harry yelling “bombers are expensive Frank, you aren’t!”

Fiction

Suite Française by Irène Némirovsky

Amazing contemporaneous fiction written about the French experience in the early years of the war and occupation. The author was a Russian Jew immigrant and was ultimately deported and killed in Auschwitz. Her daughter discovered this unfinished manuscript and published it in the early 2000s.

Every Man Dies Alone by Hans Fallada

A fictional account of a German married couple plotting and executing their own small resistance.

Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko

One of my favorite books of all time, and one that does an incredible job at imagining the effect of warfare on the human psyche.

Redeployment by Phil Klay

Short stories set in the modern OIF/OEF era.

All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

One of the most important books ever written about war (WWI).

The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien

Another of the most important books ever written about war (Vietnam).

#asks #world war ii - research #the night war meta #the night war research and sources #book recommendations #the night war

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juliusgallagher-blog · 6 years ago

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amongushq · 7 years ago

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Welcome (back) to Among Us, FLEUR! BASIL CERVANTES-SALAZAR ( with the faceclaim of BRANDON PEREA ) has found shelter in CAMP JUPITER, where we hope HE will fit in nicely. Please make sure to check the “after applying” section of our navigation here!

First: We love how, as we advance with the questions, we get to see more of Basil’s character come out. At first he seems pretty stoic, just your regular-above-average Roman, but then he starts thinking about his mum and his family and Octavian and you see all his real emotions trying to break through his training. Second: We just really love the pettiness over his need to take everything that Octavian had, it’s nice to see that the effects of the last Augur are still being felt in Camp, because they would be, he did nearly cause a war after all. Basil has so much history and depth already - you can clearly see all the thought put into his character - but there’s also so much more to find out about him and for him to find out about himself. I’m so excited to see how he takes on the Augur role and how the rest of Camp Jupiter will react to him taking over such a crucial role in the Camp system.

AND YOU ARE...?

What is your full name, and when were you born?

Basil had refused the chair that had been offered to him with a jerk of the chin by the interviewer. The gesture had been curt, military, as was to be expected by a New Roman citizen and soldier. He didn’t feel comfortable sitting: it would take him longer to be ready for combat that way, he would remain vulnerable for one fraction of a second during which the enemy could strike, deal a fatal hit.

The young man was suspecting everyone of being the mole, even though his pride whispered it had to be one of those blasted Greeks. Never would he confess that suspicion to anyone, unwilling to blow life back into the old rivalry. The embers of their discord were still tainting most of their interactions, political and social both. Basil knew he had to rise above their common history to build a better future, where both sides could depend and rely on each other in case of war; if the metaphorical black clouds rolling on the horizon were anything to go by, such an event was set to occur soon.

The interviewer tapped the end of his pen against the tabletop, immediately regaining the legionnaire’s attention.

“Basil Cervantes Salazar, born May 20th, 1996. Which means I turned twenty one this year.”

Have you been claimed, or do you belong to a legacy? If so, state your godly heritage.

"I am both. My mother was a daughter of Carmenta." Basil noticed the interviewer’s slight frown and confused look, and heaved a sigh. People who didn’t even know their own gods had a way to get under his skin. "She is the goddess of childbirth, prophecy, and innovation." People who looked at you with an affected bored expression, like you hadn’t just taught them something, annoyed him even more. There was no shame in admitting to not knowing something. "As for me," he continued, hands poised on top of the back of the chair he was still not sitting on, "I am a son of Apollon."

It had been four years since the end of the war with Terra and the conflict with the Greeks. Many things had changed since then: the biggest one for Basil was that he could claim one of the most famous Olympians as his father without fear of retribution, and this for the first time since the day he had joined Camp Jupiter at eleven. His distant relative, Octavian, had immediately seen Basil as a threat, as competition: a direct son of Apollon may very well inherit better augury-reading skills than a legacy, especially with Carmenta adding to the possibility. Yet Basil never showed, whether by chance or well-orchestrated schemes, any prophetic potential. Instead, all he was capable of was forward thinking, thanks to both his godly relations; he was fairly good with children, something he attributed as much to his personality as to his grandmother; and lastly, from Apollon he had gained the power of plague.

He couldn’t create a context in which everyone would fall deathly sick, no, nothing of that sort: but he could redirect the disease, keep the young and the old healthy while those strong enough would take the worst of the blow. He could free himself of his stress and anxiety and silly little coughs by spreading it to others, a double-edged sword wielding curse and blessing both. As he had learnt to master that ability it had become practical enough for him to be proud of it, as he appreciated the balance that came with it. He couldn’t get his town or camp rid of disease, but he could save people, diminish the casualties. In time it hurt less, having only this ability to offer to the legion.

Then Octavian died, and a couple years later Basil could see the future.

Where are you currently based?

"I spend most of my time at Camp Jupiter, which I serve as a member of the second cohort. Technically this is my last year, but I feel like I could be of help given our current circumstances, so I will surely stay past the compulsory decade of service."

By that he meant he hoped to become the new augur: after a year and a half of learning as much as he could on his own, Basil was ready to take the next step and offer his help to the praetors. Ever since the Recall he had been unable to read the future clearly, but he still saw the past and present with unique clarity. He could figure out which new recruits would cause trouble and which ones were deserving of their trust, and with more training he’d learn how to answer more precise questions, he was sure of it. In order to do that though, he would need a mentor, someone who knew how extispicy worked and could guide him in his studies. The previous augur was dead, but his trusted secretary remained: this time, no one would keep Basil from contacting Collin Marcellus, with whom he shared a cohort.

Speaking of which, Basil being a member of the second instead of the first was Octavian’s doing, like most things in his camp life: anxious to keep the son of Apollon at arm’s length, the legacy had used and abused of his connections to make sure the excellent recommendation letter Basil’s adoptive father had written him wouldn’t get the leverage it should, thus showing the younger one once again that only one of them could raise to fame. It was one way of demonstrating that Basil, if anything, was doomed to remain in Octavian’s shadow, a number two at best.

"When we are allowed to take a break, I head back home in New Rome," the young man added, unsure whether the tidbit of information was necessary. Since the interviewer took notes, he supposed he had taken the right decision in being precise.

Home was oversized, often quiet, always welcoming. He hadn’t been born there among the Salazar family: adopted when he was eight, he had found a life of luxury he wouldn’t have known with his mother. Not that it had ever mattered to him, but being taken in by someone so important in their society had had its upsides. Basil had made friends with people like the Aquinos, who would have been out of reach for him had he remained Basil Cervantes, and had still been able to get into the second cohort despite Octavian’s meddling. He had even gotten a sister from the whole thing, although he didn’t see her as often as he’d like, but they were still close.

Going back to his father was always synonymous with long talks in the evening, relaxing after being on edge for so long; it meant the love and care all family members were supposed to give to one another. So he tried not to go back too often, or he was afraid heading back to Camp would prove too difficult.

Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

"About myself? In what regards?" It was hard to imagine anyone would be interested in his hobbies or such things, but there might be some sort of information in there he couldn’t see. He needed to distance himself from the stress of being put under the limelight, as weak as it was, and act like the legionnaire he was. "I believe there are certain facts that are well known. My mother, Beatriz, was a member of the third cohort. She died when I was a child, monster attack. The reason why she left New Rome that time… I think there was something about someone’s child taking too long to reach Camp Jupiter from the Wolf House. It’s pretty vague, I never let myself dwell much on the details. Perhaps you would find out more about this if you talked to my father. Javier, I mean. Not Apollon, obviously." Tripping on his own sentences was the first indication that Basil was losing assurance. Then again he had been talking about his mother seconds ago, but he could still hear Lupa snapping at him, ordering him to hide his weaknesses.

Which was what he did, taking a breath, chin up again. "I was adopted by the Salazars, who are a long line of Roman soldiers, highly capable. My father gave me an excellent education, for which I am grateful. I suppose he took interest in me because he, too, is of Apollon – although more distantly than I am. In that way the Salazars are related to—" He trailed off, suddenly self-aware. If he started on the topic of Octavian, he might let something slip of his true emotions. How anxiety and a constant feeling of inadequacy had made it hard for him to grow into his own person, having to constantly sidestep around the Augur, promising Javier he wouldn’t do anything to annoy him or his family. After Octavian’s disappearance, Basil’s rebellious streak had finally manifested, as the demigod wasn’t risking anything anymore. He had made it his mission now to appropriate everything the former Augur had called his: every single one of his supporters, his favourite sacred objects, his spot at muster; he would beat him at his own game, too, making better allies, doing better at senate meetings, gaining the approval of many without so much as an ounce of blackmail or threats. He would be sweet and polite, hardworking, a true Roman. He would put Octavian’s name to shame, force it out of their collective memory. He was Apollon’s son, the legitimate soothsayer of the place, and he’d make sure everyone would realise that.

"—related to me, even without the adoption. Pardon my hesitation, for a second I thought I was about to sneeze. Must be something in the air, all this pollen."

What were you doing prior to the Recall ?

"Training my mind and body, as any good soldier should." There was no doubt in Basil’s mind he fit the bill more than others. Not that he thought himself above campers with a somewhat lax lifestyle, but he saw the worth in training. He relished in the satisfaction it provided him every time he went back to his barracks sweaty and in dire need of a cool shower. How anyone could turn down training sessions was a mystery to him. "I was also reading many works on various augury reading techniques. I will be taking up the mantle of augur from now on, so I’ve made some attempts at home beforehand. I wouldn’t want to mess up my first reading here, and while I am confident these abilities were granted by Apollon or Carmenta themselves, I do not wish to rely on the divine origin of my powers, lest I become lazy, or worse. Constant effort is the only way towards quality work."

That was a sufficient amount of information, he supposed; judging from the interviewer’s nod as the man closed the folder he had laid out on the table, Basil wasn’t the only one to think so. Upon being informed that his presence was no longer required, he excused himself and slipped through the door, closing it cautiously behind himself. This had been the easy part: now, he had to re-introduce himself to Reyna, this time as Augur of Camp Jupiter. Heart hammering in his chest, he took a deep breath and started walking.

#accepted #basil cervantes salazar

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yesweweresoldiers · 6 years ago

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What We’re Talking About: A MAHG Reading Roundup

Every summer, TeachingAmericanHistory brings together scholars and teachers from around the nation to our campus in Ashland to enjoy week-long seminars on focused topics in American history and government. These courses can be taken for graduate credit, or simply for your personal enrichment — some participants describe the experience as an “intellectual retreat” where they can enjoy both conversation and collegiality.

If you aren’t able to join us in person this summer, we hope you’ll consider joining us in spirit by checking out some of the myriad texts we’ll be discussing. If you’re reading along, we invite you to join the conversation using #TAHreading to share your thoughts!

Peter Myers, GREAT AMERICAN TEXTS: FREDERICK DOUGLASS

This summer I am teaching Great Texts: Frederick Douglass, which is a course devoted to reading Douglass’s autobiographies. In fact he published his life story four different times, under three different titles. I would recommend all three of them because they’re all very much worth reading, but I doubt our teachers, busy as they are, would take me up on that recommendation! So I’ll choose my favorite of the three, which is not the most commonly assigned of them. The first one, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845), is the earliest and also the most commonly assigned, but my favorite is the middle one, My Bondage and My Freedom (1855). This one is my favorite because it’s the most philosophic. While narrating the unforgettable story of how he rose from the very bottom to (nearly) the very top of American society, Douglass reflects on what it means to be human, on the natures of slavery and of freedom, on the basis of natural rights, on legitimate and illegitimate government, on the importance of family connections, on the possibility of redemption, on the problem of race in America, and much more. Douglass was a living, breathing argument for republican government and equal liberty in America. His story should be an inspiration to all who read it—and it’s a great pleasure besides, because he was a very gifted writer. See more of what we’ll be reading on the class syllabus.

Dan Monroe, SECTIONALISM AND CIVIL WAR

Charles Dew, Apostles of Disunion: Southern Secession Commissioners and the Causes of the Civil War (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2001).

Dew examined the speeches and writings of Southern secession commissioners during the so-called Secession Winter. As Southern states called secession conventions to consider withdrawing from the Union, other Southern states sent commissioners or representatives to speak at the conventions and advocate secession. Dew had been raised in the South and educated to believe that a principled commitment to states’ rights motivated and animated the secession movement. What he found in the speeches of secession zealots was instead an emphasis on maintaining slavery and white supremacy. He noted that speakers stressed the alleged horrors of racial “amalgamation” and of race war. Hence, Dew has done a great service by revealing the true rationale of the secession movement. See more of what we’ll be reading on the class syllabus.

Todd Estes, GREAT AMERICAN TEXTS: THE FEDERALIST

Jurgen Heideking, The Constitution Before the Judgment Seat: The Prehistory and Ratification of the American Constitution, 1787-1791. Edited by John P. Kaminski and Richard Leffler. (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2012).

This book was originally published in German in 1988 but was then significantly revised in translation by the author and John Kaminski and Richard Leffler at the Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution project in Madison, Wisconsin. Before the project was completed, Heideking died tragically in a 2000 automobile accident. Kaminski and Leffler completed the revised project, and after bouncing around from press to press, it was finally published by Virginia in 2012. By then, Pauline Maier’s 2010 book, Ratification, had appeared and Heideking’s volume never received the attention of book reviewers or scholars that it deserved.

That is a shame because this is a work filled with brilliant insights and key interpretations of the ratification debate, grounded in deep primary source research. The Constitution Before the Judgment Seat (which takes its title from a phrase George Washington used in a letter) reads like a series of connected essays, presented mostly in chronological order, on aspects of the debate. It hits all the major highlights and headline events that Maier covered in her fine study but offers, to my mind, a series of highly significant linked arguments about the ratification contest. It is particularly strong on the role of the press and the significance of political tactics in the debate. Taken together, the chapters comprising this book represent a masterful work of historical scholarship, crucial to all who work on this topic. It deserves a wide audience. See more of what we’ll be reading on the class syllabus.

Stephen Knott and David Tucker, AMERICAN STATESMEN: HAMILTON & JEFFERSON

Stephen Knott: The document I have selected for the summer reading round-up is a letter from Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Hamilton to John Jay, the President of the Continental Congress in 1779, urging the enlistment of slaves to fight for the “Glorious Cause.” The essence of Hamilton’s plan, hatched in concert with his friend Lieutenant Colonel John Laurens, the son of one of the largest slaveholders in South Carolina, was to “give them [slaves] their freedom with their muskets.” Hamilton rejected the notion of the supremacy of the white race, noting that arguments claiming that blacks are “too stupid to make soldiers” was a faulty one, “for their natural faculties are probably as good as ours.”

Alexander Hamilton would go on, along with John Jay, to become a founding member of the “New York Society for the Manumission of Slaves” in 1785 and a supporter of Toussaint L’Ouverture’s revolution in Haiti, a rare instance of a successful slave uprising. Ironically, many members of the Federalist Party, who are frequently portrayed as elitists and enemies of the “common man,” were the strongest advocates for abolition during the early years of the republic.

David Tucker: Thomas Jefferson’s First Inaugural Address ranks among the very best. After one of the bitterest and most divisive election campaigns in our history, he offered a high-minded conciliatory speech, intended to unite all Americans by reminding them of the blessings of self-government and the advantages of American life. America was “a rising nation, spread over a wide and fruitful land, traversing all the seas with the rich productions of [its] industry.” In Jefferson’s view, America was “advancing rapidly to destinies beyond the reach of mortal eye.” This was an account of American greatness that made America, as Jefferson put it, “the world’s best hope,” and would instill pride and fellow feeling among Americans.

Perhaps the most variously talented and intelligent man to hold our highest office, Jefferson spoke in humble terms of his own abilities, recognizing that this was another way to unify the divided country, because it made the assistance of all parties, and all branches of government, a requirement for success.

Jefferson’s emphasis in the Inaugural Address on what united Americans was not pious compliance with conventional niceties, or required only by the immediate political circumstances. It addressed the most fundamental and ever-present problem of democratic self-government: the majority rules, but what about the minority? If, before they divide into parties, the people who rule are not unified in some way, if they do not share some things in common or share some good, then it would mean that majority rule must benefit only the majority and majority-rule would be indistinguishable from tyranny. Jefferson addressed this issue by listing “the essential principles of our Government,” which all Americans shared. Americans held different opinions certainly. “But,” he reminded his fellow-citizens, “every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle.” He did it above all in words that are the most important he wrote after the statement that “all men are created equal.” In these words, which he called a sacred principle, Jefferson left us at once our most important political principle and our most important political aspiration:

“Though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect and to violate would be oppression.”

After announcing this principle and aspiration, Jefferson wrote “Let us, then, fellow-citizens unite with one heart and mind. Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things.” See more of what we’ll be reading on the class syllabus.

Jeff Sikkenga, THE SUPREME COURT

This week in our MAHG class on the Supreme Court we will be looking at how the Court has understood the constitutional powers of the President, especially in foreign affairs and national security. One of our key primary documents is the public debate between Alexander Hamilton and James Madison over the justice, wisdom, and constitutionality of George Washington’s 1793 Proclamation declaring America’s neutrality in the then ongoing war between Britain and France. Writing as “Pacificus,” Hamilton defended Washington’s Proclamation while Madison attacked it under the pen name “Helvidius”. The Pacificus-Helvidius debate reflected not only differences on the constitutional powers of the presidency but also the intense partisan divide that was growing in the 1790s. Madison opened Helvidius #1 by declaring that Hamilton’s argument in favor of executive power would be applauded only by “foreigners and degenerate citizens among us, who hate our republican government.” See more of what we’ll be reading on the class syllabus.

The post What We’re Talking About: A MAHG Reading Roundup appeared first on Teaching American History.

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top5internetsourcesuniversi-blog · 7 years ago

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Medical School Essay Two

'Medical train Essay deuce\nPrompt: W present do you entrust to be in x long time sen exce?\nIf you had told me ten age ago that I would be create verb solelyy this essay and cooking for yet other ten eld into the emerging, sort of me would put been surprised. I am a contriver and a overlord of to-do lists, and it has ceaselessly been my visualize to fol number one in the stairs of my father and force a physician. This plan was derailed when I was called to participating duty to shell taboo in Iraq as part of the state of war on Terror.\n\nI joined the case Guard in the commencement ceremony place graduating high groom and watchd my aid when I began college. My closing was to receive provision that would be worth(predicate) for my future aesculapian rush, as I was working in the subject of requirement wellness cargon. It was besides a focal point to help me net profit for college. When I was called to sprightly duty in Iraq for my first deploym ent, I was forced to charter from croping, and my deployment was subsequently extended. I spent a total of 24 months deployed overseas, where I provided in-the- battleground aesculapian examination support to our competitiveness troops. dapple the throw was invaluable non unaccompanied in term of my future medical carg hotshotr exclusively desirewise in terms of developing leadership and imaginative prizeing skills, it put my chthoniangrad studies on push in for over cardinal geezerhood. Consequently, my billing skilfuly-planned excursion towards medical cultivate and a medical sustainmenter was thrown move out course. Thus, while ten-year plans ar valuable, I go through well-educated from follow through how slow such(prenominal) plans after part after part in situations that are beyond wizs control, as well as the value of effort and flexibility.\n\nEventually, I re cancelled to school. disrespect my best efforts to alumna within two geeze rhood, it took me another deuce-ace years, as I suffered greatly from post-traumatic emphasize disorder pursuance my time in Iraq. I considered abandoning my am twation of becoming a physician alto lighther, since I was some(prenominal) years slowly my peers with whom I had taken biological science and chemistry familyes in the lead my deployment. conveys to the ageless en braveryment of my schoolman advisor, who even stayed in contact with me when I was overseas, I equanimous my strength and courage and began employmenting for the MCAT. To my surprise, my strike was beyond okay and while I am several years behind my original ten-year plan, I am direct applying to Brown Universitys domesticate of medical specialty.\n\nI can strike my new ten-year plan, that I pass on do so with two optimism and too caution, k like a shoting that I impart exigencys face unfore interpretn complications and will need to adapt appropriately. angiotensin converting enzyme of the more insights I gained as a member of the case Guard and by serving in war-time was the incredible creativity medical specialists in the Armed Forces affiance to discover unnecessary wellness care run to our wounded soldiers on the ground. I was part of a team up that was saving lives chthonic incredibly challenging circumstancessometimes while under heavy upgrade and with only the or so canonic of resources. I am now interested in how I can physical exercise these skills to deliver health care in corresponding circumstances where basic medical al-Qaida is lacking. While there is seemingly piffling in park between the comeupance of Fallujah and rural Wyoming, where Im shortly working as a provide first responder in a small townsfolk located more(prenominal) than 60 miles from the nearest hospital, I see a dance orchestra of potential uses for the skills that I gained as a National Guardsman. As I versed from my father, who worked with Doctors Without Borders for a add of years, there is quite a bit in cat valium between my field of cognition from the war machine and working in post-conflict z geniuss. I tonicity I cast off a crotchety experience from which to draw as I embark on my medical school journey, experiences that can be applied both here and abroad.\n\nIn ten years time, I hope to be clever in the field of emergency medicine, which, surprisingly, is a specialization that is real lacking here in the join States as compared to alike developed countries. I hope to name and address research in the field of health care floor and work with political sym leadies agencies and legislators to find original solutions to improving gravel to emergency facilities in currently under service of processd areas of the get together States, with an aim towards providing citywide policy reports and recommendations on how the US can once over again be the creative activity leader in health outcomes. While the problems inh erent in our health care system are not linear and require a dynamic approach, one of the solutions as I see it is to reckon less in terms of state-of-the-art facilities and more in terms of entree to primary care. some(prenominal) of the care that I provide as a first responder and put up is extremely sound and too relatively cheap. More property is everlastingly accommodating when facing a complex friendly and political problem, but we must think of solutions above and beyond more bills and more taxes. In ten years I inadequacy to be a key fraud in the health care believe in this uncouth and offering ripe solutions to delivering high property and cost-effective health care to all our nations citizens, especially to those in rural and other underserved areas.\n\nOf course, my policy interests do not flip-flop my passion for lot others and delivering emergency medicine. As a doctor, I hope to continue serving in areas of the country that, for one reason or anoth er, are lag behind in basic health care infrastructure. Eventually, I would also like to take my knowledge and talents abroad and serve in the placidity Corps or Doctors Without Borders.\n\nIn short, I see the subroutine of physicians in ordering as multifunctional: they are not only doctors who heal, they are also leaders, innovators, social scientists, and patriots. Although my path to medical school has not always been the most direct, my vary and circuitous journey has bedeviln me a set of skills and experiences that m whatsoever otherwise serve applicants lack. I take on no inquiry that the next ten years will be also unpredictable, but I can regard you that no thing what obstacles I face, my goal will bear on the same. I rightfully hope to put down the next signifier of my journey at Brown University. Thank you for your kind attention.\n\n extra Tips for a flourishing Medical School Essay\n\n disregarding of the prompt, you should always address the question o f why you compulsion to go to medical school in your essay.\n discover to always give concrete modelings quite than make common statements. If you say that you pay perseverance, describe an grammatical case in your action that demonstrates perseverance.\nThere should be an overall substance or basis in your essay. In the example above, the bailiwick is overcoming unexpected obstacles.\n groom sure as shooting you substantiation and recheck for spelling and grammar!\nUnless youre very sure you can pull it off, it is usually not a veracious idea to use humor or to employ the skills you ensureed in creative writing class in your individualised statement. While you want to paint a picture, you dont want to be too poetical or literary.\n romp potential weaknesses into positives. As in the example above, address any potential weaknesses in your application and make them strengths, if possible. If you have low MCAT scores or something else that cant be easily explained or t urned into a positive, evidently dont mention it.\nTo learn more somewhat what to expect from the study of medicine, check out our Study Medicine in the US section.If you want to get a full essay, order it on our website: Looking for a place to buy a cheap paper online? Buy Paper Cheap - Premium quality cheap essays and affordable papers online. Buy cheap, high quality papers to impress your professors and pass your exams. Do it online right now! '

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brianwarden · 7 years ago

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Gad the Islamophobe

I recently listened to an episode of Sam Harris's excellent podcast "Waking Up" that featured as his guest Gad Saad, someone who's own podcast is another favorite of mine; I highly recommend both. Both Harris and Saad are academics/scientists/public figures who are highly critical of recent trends regarding free speech, postmodernism, tolerance, political correctness, and “regressive leftism”.

That term, which I first heard used by Muslim reformer Maajid Nawaz, refers to those ostensibly on the left, that often engage in regressive tactics, principally anti free speech bullying. Regressives are in the vanguard of extreme political correctness, commonly complaining about "cultural appropriation", the wage gap, patriarchy, Islamophobia, etc. For instance, in many a college campus it has become common for regressive's to target visiting speakers, show up at the event, and attempt to silence said speaker. This is often done by blocking entrance to the event, harassing attendees, rushing the stage, and in more than one instance, pulling fire alarms.

So I am a big fan of Harris and Saad, as well as their comrades in arms Christine Hoff Sommers, Dave Rubin, Joe Rogan, Bill Maher, Sarah Haider, Jon Haidt, and several others. I consider myself a liberal, but am embarrassed by what many of the same label are currently doing: silencing opposing views, demonizing all white men, creating safe spaces, trigger warnings, and micro aggressions; what I prefer to call the PC left. I guess I meet the definition of a classical liberal, of the John Stuart Mill mold, but the semantics of political labels have become very muddled lately.

As hinted above, I'm not a fan of the term "Islamophobia". Not that I think it's a meaningless term, just that it's over used to the point of becoming virtually meaningless. Any criticism of Islam is characterized as Islamophobic by the regressive left, even the most obvious. E.g. criticisms of Islam's treatment of women or gays are labeled Islamophobia, even by feminists and gays within the regressive left. A legitimate usage of the term Islamophobia, in my view, would be towards someone who refers to “ragheads” or “sand n**gers” or wants to turn the entire Middle East in to glass or prohibit all immigration from countries with a Muslim majority; that's Islamophobia, no question. All I'm saying is that the term is thrown around a lot.

As in the case of the term homophobia, the "phobia" part isn't precisely accurate. The definition of a phobia is "an extreme or irrational fear of, or aversion to something." Most homophobes aren't actually scared of gays, they just hate them. Same for Islamophobia, except with Islam there is an element of fear; terrorism is real, and its biggest practitioners presently are Muslim.

Harris himself has often been (mis)labeled as an Islamophobe and even a bigot, but these charges are without merit. I've read all of his books and essays, listened to every podcast, watched countless videos, and have never yet heard a single comment that could be accurately described as bigoted. He's as harsh towards Christianity as he is towards Islam.

Until I listened to his podcast entitled "The Frontiers of Political Correctness" I would've said the same of Saad. Saad's own personal story is very interesting and gives his views and opinions some weight. "I was born in Lebanon, I grew up in Lebanon, so my mother tongue is Arabic, we're Arabic in a multiplicity of ways...some of the music we listen to, and the foods, and if you saw us you wouldn’t know that we were anything but Arabic, the only asterisk is that we are Lebanese Jews" (40:55).

He states he has over 100 Muslim friends. Later, he claims that in his neighborhood, if he encounters 20 women, 8 will be wearing Islamic garb. In Montreal. "I could walk out of my house, and of the first twenty women I see, eight are wearing Islamic garb" (1:21:30). (I call bullshit. 40% of the women he encounters in Montreal are Muslim?)

But where he gets real bizarre, and makes Rush Limbaugh seem tolerant, is when he describes an incident that occurred while out with his family:

"Close to my house, we tried to go to a children's park, and saw two women in full burka, my daughter got out, felt a bit scared, we got back in the car and left" (1:21:00).

Covered faces are indeed to some extent frightening. Armed robbers in ski masks, clowns, ninjas, little old Korean ladies hiding their skin from UV, KKK hoods, soldiers lined up all in gas masks; all scary looking, no question. But flee the park in fear?

Is there some right, some principle of liberty, that entitles one to gaze in to the face of all fellow citizens in order to better read them and their intentions? As Harris wisely responds, perhaps on private property one has such a right, say a 7-11 owner in reaction to someone in a ski mask. Absolutely, I agree completely. But out on the streets, in a public park? No way. No such right has ever existed in the West, nor do I know of anyone ever proposing such an idea.

But Gad's daughters’ reaction at the playground leads me to wonder just what the fuck is Gad telling his kids at home? I mean, worse-case scenario, there is a Muslim male under the burka, right? What would be his families’ reaction if there were Muslim males there at the park, perhaps even taking prayer? Flee?

It is not an overstatement, nor PC in the slightest, to state that Gad Saad and his family are literally Islamophobic, to the point that genuine fear, and flight, occurs when spotting Muslims. Never mind that he previously said, "Your chances of dying by murder in Canada is unbelievably small" (52:15). This is certainly true. In all of Canada, there were 19 violent acts towards Jews in 2014, the most current year for stats, resulting in zero deaths; yet, an average of 9.5 people die each year in Canada by lightning strikes.

He also said several other things during the podcast that are troublesome to say the least. For example, he revisits this traumatic trip to the park, and expands on his theory of a “right to see [people’s faces]”:

"If your position is that, no, let's not intrude on their right to quote choose, I actually think that my right to be able to read your facial features, since that's an evolved quality, in my communication system, supersedes your right to be in a tent, and if you want to be in a tent you don't belong here because I want to be, when I walk to that school yard, not school yard, but play park, and there were two, I'm guessing women but they could be anything right, I can't tell who they are, and they were in black and we all froze, and I come from that land [Lebanon] and my daughter got scared and we got back in the car, then my rights lost there. And therefore, no, I don't think we should allow that expression. No, I don't want that in my streets" [emphasis added] (1:42:05).

Perhaps it’s good Gad resides in Canada. That viewpoint regarding religious expression won’t fly in the states. His right to read faces? Because the ability to read faces evolved in humans, it’s now a right? That’s not how we set out rights. Later, he seems to be claiming that he simply can’t prevent himself from stereotyping and acting on it:

"No one probably knows more nice and decent Muslims, probably no one has more Muslim friends than I do by virtue of my background, so obviously at the individual level there's no discussion to be had, there are very nice Muslims, there are very bad Muslims, we're talking here about statistical regularity's, right, our brains have evolved to detect statistical regularity's [stereotypes], I mean that's a central feature in the architecture of the human mind” (51:29).

Or check out this gem from the “Gadfather”:

"There's a game that I satirize, but frankly the satire is very accurate, it's called 'Six Degrees of Kill the Jew' and the game works as follows: so basically, the way the game works is, Achmed comes to the room, I say hello to him, how many exchanges does it take before we converge - especially since I speak Arabic and therefore he certainly doesn't know I'm Jewish - before we both converge on 'let's go kill the Jews'. And the reality is, this is how it typically goes: 'Hi Achmed, how are you? Fine, let's kill the Jews’" (1:13:40).

Then, a minute later, he admits the above stereotype is mythical: "Of the top 100 Muslims that I know, every single one of them is a lovely guy that doesn't fill the 'kill-the-Jews' stereotype, but that doesn't say anything about the greater issue" (1:15:00).

He seems to have some issues. He is simultaneously claiming: the odds of being murdered in Canada are “unbelievably small”; that his family is not outwardly Jewish looking, “if you saw us you wouldn't know that we were anything but Arabic”; that he knows lots of Muslims and none of them are anti-Semitic; yet, if burkas are spotted, FLEE!

In the novel Infinite Jest, there’s an organization called U.H.I.D., the Union of the Hideously and Improbably Deformed, an agnostic-style 12-step support-group deal for what it calls the “aesthetically challenged.” It’s a hilarious portion of the book, with a pretty absurd premise, and is milked for some great laughs*. But beyond this comedic “donning of the veil” is a more serious issue, albeit one most of us haven’t considered. Does one have a right to hide one’s face?

Although it’s not enumerated in the Bill of Rights, I believe a person has the right to cover their face in public. For any reason whatsoever. I see little old ladies covering themselves out of fear of sunlight. I see germaphobic people wearing masks out of fear of germs. And, of course, religious people doing what their religion tells them, or what they interpret their religion to be telling them. Given the extreme importance the Founding Fathers put on religious liberty and expression, I think those values trump anyone’s desire to read faces.

I tried to raise this subject with the man himself, via twitter, and was quickly attacked, by Gad as well as many of his followers. He used his stock insult on me, “naturally lobotomized castrati”, and mocked my curiosity on the matter. E.g. I wrote that I found his family’s reaction to seeing burkas “baffling”; he responds with: “It is ‘baffling’ why it would be jarring to see individuals wearing black tents in a play ground with hidden identities”. He goes on: “Clearly, only ‘racist bigots’ would be concerned about such an ostentatious display of openness and warmth.” Thou doth protest too much.

In the wake of Charlottesville, I’m noticing something quite alarming: many of the folks that I considered to be basically liberals, but have a major problem with the PC left, are not liberal at all; they’re as conservative as Rush Limbaugh and just enjoy mocking and ridiculing campus snowflakes. The reaction to Harris’ tweet of August 13th, regarding white identity politics, exposed many of these folks. I don’t put Gad in the category of Limbaugh, but he’s got a dark side that’s for sure.

___________________________________________

* “Well Mr. Gately what people don’t get about being hideously or improbably deformed is that the urge to hide is offset by a gigantic sense of shame about your urge to hide. You’re at a graduate wine-tasting party and improbably deformed and you’re the object of stares that the people try to conceal because they’re ashamed of wanting to stare, and you want nothing more than to hide from the covert stares, to erase your difference, to crawl under the tablecloth or put your face under your arm, or you pray for a power failure and for this kind of utter liberating equalizing darkness to descend so you can be reduced to nothing but a voice among other voices, invisible, equal, no different, hidden.

But Don you’re still a human being, you still want to live, you crave connection and society, you know intellectually that you’re no less worthy of connection and society than anyone else simply because of how you appear, you know that hiding yourself away out of fear of gazes is really giving in to a shame that is not required and that will keep you from the kind of life you deserve as much as the next girl, you know that you can’t help how you look but that you are supposed to be able to help how much you care about how you look. You’re supposed to be strong enough to exert some control over how much you want to hide, and you’re so desperate to feel some kind of control that you settle for the appearance of control. What you do is you hide your deep need to hide, and you do this out of the need to appear to other people as if you have the strength not to care how you appear to others. You stick your hideous face right in there into the wine-tasting crowd’s visual meatgrinder, you smile so wide it hurts and put out your hand and are extra gregarious and outgoing and exert yourself to appear totally unaware of the facial struggles of people who are trying not to wince or stare or give away the fact that they can see that you’re hideously, improbably deformed. You feign acceptance of your deformity. You take your desire to hide and conceal it under a mask of acceptance. In other words you hide your hiding. And you do this out of shame: you’re ashamed of the fact that you want to hide from sight. You’re ashamed of your uncontrolled craving for shadow. U.H.I.D.’s First Step is admission of powerlessness over the need to hide. U.H.I.D. allows members to be open about their essential need for concealment. In other words we don the veil. We don the veil and wear the veil proudly and stand very straight and walk briskly wherever we wish, veiled and hidden, and but now completely up-front and unashamed about the fact that how we appear to others affects us deeply, about the fact that we want to be shielded from all sight. U.H.I.D. supports us in our decision to hide openly. But a lot of the forms of self-hatred there is no veil for. U.H.I.D.’s taught a lot of us to be grateful that there’s at least a veil for our form.”

“So the veil’s a way to not hide it.?”

“To hide openly, is more like it.”

From Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace

[NOTE: I fully realize there is a false equivalence between the people featured in the attached pic and two burka clad women at a playground; the point is, all the people in the pic are violating Gad’s imaginary right to read faces. (Btw, the woman in full burka is Janet Jackson and son.)]

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killscreencinema · 8 years ago

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Final Fantasy XIII (Playstation 3)

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As of this writing, the political and social landscape is grim. Republicans are in power, opening the door for a tidal wave of legislation based on fear and hatred. Muslims, immigrants (legal or otherwise), and refugees are vilified and used as political currency to allow crooks to pull a sleight of hand, mollifying their voter base with shows of force like the travel ban and recent ICE deportations, while at the same time doing everything they can to make it easier for the rich to get richer at the expense of the impoverished.

I don’t bring all of this up to open the door to political discussion, but merely to set the stage for the story of Final Fantasy XIII, which tells a similar tale of government using the power of bigotry and fear to keep control over the masses. Final Fantasy XIII takes place in a world called Cocoon, which hovers over a larger, more wild world called Gran Pulse. The two neighbors don’t get along well, especially after a great war when Pulse’s forces nearly destroyed Cocoon. Now, near as I can tell because in actuality the story of this is confusing as hell, the worlds of both Cocoon and Pulse are fun by godlike beings called Fal’Cie. The Pulse Fal’Cie are fond of “infecting” the citizens of Cocoon, turning them into reluctant agents of destruction known as l’Cie. Once a l’Cie, one must carry out their “focus”, given by the Fal’Cie, or else be transformed into monstrous beings known as C’eith. If a l’Cie successfully carries out their focus, they are rewarded by being transformed into a crystal.

Do you see what I mean by how confusing this story is?

Anyway, the Cocoon government, known as The Sanctum, does NOT abide l’Cie, and has a no tolerance policy regarding anyone who may be a Pulse l’Cie (which is evident by a brand that is tattooed on their body). After a Pulse Fal’Cie makes an unprecedented appearance near a beach community on Cocoon, the Sanctum decides they can’t take any chances, and the citizens of the community are all rounded up to be imprisoned on suspicion of being involved with the Fal’Cie’s appearance. Our story begins with a government soldier named Lightening, who infiltrates one of the prison trains to find her supposedly infected little sister Serah. Along the way, Lightening reluctantly joins up with a variety of characters, such as a brash revolutionary named Snow; an airship pilot named Sazh, who is looking for his son in the chaos; a young boy named Hope; and a mysterious, quirky young woman named Vanille. Pretty soon all of them are turned into a l’Cie by a fal’Cie that happens to invade during the prison break, making their lives even more complicated. To make matters worse, it seems their focus as l’Cies is the total destruction of Cocoon.

Before I started writing this review, I had just finished up Chapter 12 of the game, with nothing left to do but tie up loose ends with sub-quests before taking on the final bosses. Normally, I prefer to finish a game before reviewing it, but I feel like I’ve played enough to give a thorough critique. Needless to say, this game already has a fairly negative reputation. It is affectionately referred to as “Final Fantasy Hallways” by many of its critics, not only due to the very limited map design consisting of very straightforward pathways with very little deviation, but to the EXTREMELY linear gameplay. This game is on more rails than the Hogwarts Express.

The appeal of an RPG is the ability to explore the world that the game is set in. Sure, it can argued that, despite the open world mechanics of Final Fantasy games in the past, those were still very linear in that in order to open the world up for exploration, one had to go from destination-to-destination to move the story forward. It’s only after you gain access to an airship that the Final Fantasy game truly become an “open world” experience. Still, the way Final Fantasy XIII trudges the player along from one set piece to another is astoundingly linear. There is zero sense of exploration, or even context as to where the fuck you are in the world that the story takes place. There are no towns to buy supplies or talk to the residents; instead you buy stuff at the save points. It’s only by Chapter 11(!), when your characters travel through the expansive wild plains of Gran Pulse, that the game opens up and feels even remotely like a Final Fantasy, or any RPG, should feel. However, this is an illusion, as there’s nothing to be done here but do the various “C’eith Stone Missions”, which seem like option sub-quests, but you *have* to do at least 26 of them in order to progress. There are about 60 in all, the rest of which ARE optional before you finish the game.

That aside, the battle system is actually pretty interesting. The game continues a variation of the real-time battle system started by Final Fantasy XI, with a new twist called the Paradigm system. The Paradigms are basically like job classes, which you can switch during battle on the fly. Have a team of brawlers but need medic? Switch Paradigms, and one, two, or hell, all of your former brawlers are now medics! Some characters are better at certain classes than others (which I love, by the way), so you’ll want to be careful on what abilities you improve with each person in your party. Speaking of which, there’s no “leveling up” in the traditional sense, instead you are rewarded after each battle with Crystarium Points, which you can use to unlock better stats and abilities in the “Crystarium”, which is similar to the Grid System from Final Fantasy X. I actually enjoyed these aspects of the game, even though it frustrates me not to be able to control what everyone in my party is doing (the other two team members are controlled by AI, similar to games like Knights of the Old Republic or Kingdom Hearts). Battles could actually be quite challenging, verging on FRUSTRATING, if you don’t learn how to set up useful Paradigms and when to switch to what Paradigm during battle. I guess this is a good thing, as I was never really bored with fighting people.

I mentioned before about the story being a confusing mess, which is a shame because the main characters are an eclectic bunch. I dig the character design, especially considering the boy band aesthetic that the main characters in the more recent Final Fantasy XV seemed to have adopted. Lightening, who is on the cover of the game and so I therefor consider the main protagonist, is an unlikable cunt through most of the game, carrying on the Square Final Fantasy tradition of the main character starting off an asshole before softening up as the story advances. I guess redemption stories make for interesting character arcs, then again, never at any point did I really give any fucks about Lightening or the other characters... with maybe the exception of Vanille, who is cute as a button (even though she quickly gets annoying as well). Part of the problem is I was always either bored or confused with the larger story to really care that much about the characters. The other part of the problem is the characters are just really... dull. I didn’t even realize Sazh was an airship pilot until I looked it up. He probably mentioned it during the many, many, MANY cutscenes, but I was probably spaced out, checking my Facebook.

That’s a real shame too! The stories and memorable characters have always been the biggest draws of all of the Final Fantasy games. If all else fails, I should be writing in the review, “Hey, at least the story was cool” but it wasn’t. The story was just a slog. Would it have killed the writers to ditch the “fal’Cie/l’Cie/C’eith” shit and name them all something less SIMILAR? Would it have helped if we as players weren’t THRUST right into the political maelstrom this world is built on and given more context about all of this shit so we knew what it meant before it became more relevant to the story??? The beginning of the whole game felt like walking into the middle of a Game of Thrones episode, with no knowledge of the previous episodes or even what the show is. So instead of enjoying the story, your brain is just going, “What the fuck is going on? Who are these people? What is happening? Fal’Cie? What the fuck is that? Is that a bad thing? STOP THE GAME AND EXPLAIN WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING!”

The end result is a Final Fantasy game that wants to be a movie more than a game. It’s not as terrible as most might claim on the internet. I know, it’s shocking, but nuance actually exists! As a Final Fantasy game, I would definitely say its among the worst... right up there with Final Fantasy X-2... BUT it is still a decent enough game. The graphics are excellent, the music is... s’alright (which is nigh unacceptable by Final Fantasy standards), and the controls are good. So it’s solid on almost every front, except for not being a really good Final Fantasy game. I’d recommend it to fans curious about the game’s bad reputation, as you might be surprised, but this probably won’t win many converts to the FF train (that is to say, the Phantom Train.. hehehe) like such hallmarks in the series like Final Fantasy VI, VII, and X. As for me, I’ve enjoyed the game enough that I’m willing to finish it up and eventually check out the sequel, Final Fantasy XIII-2.

#Final Fantasy #Final Fantasy XIII #Final Fantasy 13 #Square #Square Enix #Playstation #Playstation 3 #PS3 #Sony #RPG #JRPG #role playing game #Chocobo #Moogle #video games #video game #video game review

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